The Ice Scream Man

by Salmon, J. F.

  “Oh, I know how you must worry, Mother!”

  There she goes again, difficult to control, I bet. “Don’t go running this morning.” Boohoo for you.

  They haven’t given me a trade name yet. I have already told the police who I am, if they can figure it out, twice now, in fact. It’s not difficult to figure out. The public will not understand who I really am. It would be nice to give them something a little less complicated to fear.

  I was thinking “Mr. Lollypop,” citing my obvious trademark. Then Helen tells me she prefers “The Ice Scream Man.”

  I like that.

  I Finish Respectfully In That.

  The Ice Scream Man

  The letter came off the table, trapped between pinched fingers. The words reflected off the page, creating a magnetic line of vision Kate found impossible to break. Each word hurt, burning into her retinas just as the letters and words had burnt into the envelope before she picked it up. A cascade of chemical and electrical events triggered nerve impulses that shot off to various visual centres of her brain, turning the words into horrifying images, bloodied teeth, cutting, and slicing. Her mind began to play cruel tricks as the words played out because the impulses carried by the fibres of the optic nerve were confused.

  Kate’s mind carried her into the clearing. She could feel the dirt beneath her stocking feet and smell the wild garlic that hung in the still air. There was another smell too, one she had never smelt before. It was like the smell of insects and excrement, not hers, somebody else’s: Helen’s. The smell was dank and stuffy with oversized molecules that battled to fit up her nostrils and tease the back of her throat.

  Then her daughter came into focus, bloody and naked, hanging from a strong branch, her head held stable between upstretched arms in sockets that could tear at any moment, her face drenched in blood as if a bucketful had been poured over her. Her hair was levelled to her scalp; a perfect pink line denoted the centre parting, and for the first time Kate saw the real state of her daughter. Her mind brought her within a foot of Helen’s bloodied face but she was unable to touch or comfort her in any way; she could only observe.

  Then with the speed of a wind-up Jack-in-the-box, Helen’s closed eyes popped open, the whites crystal clear, and she grinned senselessly and said in a childish voice, a giddy voice, “Hello, Mother, how are you today? Happy here, see.” And brightened her bloody grin to perky, then said, “I like the Ice Scream Man, look what he does.”

  The beast was below her, a foul animal with the smell of excrement and its head buried into her daughter’s pelvic area. She heard the sound of gnawing, chewing, slurping, and swallowing, eating like a ravenous glutton. Her mind brought her close to the beast’s head. A tossed mane of dark brown hair held her attention; it was all she could see. The beast’s head suddenly turned, staring up at her with black, cat-like eyes, taking a break from its meal, its lower bloody jaw protruding out as if dislocated, an arc of spikey teeth showing bits of scraggy flesh before it swallowed.

  It took a moment for the features of the beast to register, and when they did, a bubble of atomic proportions burst in her belly. Kate recognised the face of the beast to be her own, looking back at her with smiling eyes and bloodied, fanged teeth. The beast was pleased with herself, satisfied, having just eaten the best meal of her life. A stout, whopping tongue escaped from its mouth, her mouth, and whipped around the circumference of its face, past the frown of its brow and lapped the splatters of blood from its forehead.

  Kate came back to the table and realized her own tongue moving erratically outside of her mouth. She gripped the collar of the gown and pressed her knuckles to her throat in an attempt to prevent her swallowing what she believed would be her daughter’s blood. She bit down hard on the fleshy muscular organ, holding it between her teeth until it stopped its struggle and became her own again. She was unable to put the letter down while the vivid images plundered her mind. Awake or asleep it made no difference. Life for Kate Dooley was a nightmare.

  The spell only broke when she got a snapshot of his excitement. It extended to his hard prick and she quickly dropped the letter to the floor, unable to touch it, unable to stamp the grimy frightening images out of it, such was the potency of his wanting. It left her physically drained, scared, and mentally scarred but she knew Helen was not with him or anywhere near him. Helen never called her Mother, always Mummy or Mam. Mother was such a derogative term. But he did get one thing right: Helen was missing, the best part of her gone forever.

  Kate forgot all about her tea, no longer thirsty. Her body tingled all over and her active mind buzzed a hum she could hear. She knew now she had the gift, had had it all along, and it was strong. Up until now, there was no reason for it. After the woman on the bike had approached her down by the traffic lights and asked to “Lick her pussy,” life for Kate had worked out rather well. The gift allowed her to make good decisions, be a good judge of character, and steer her in the right direction.

  The letter jump-started the life back into her senses and transported her to where Helen had been attacked. Attacked. Ha, that was an understatement. She knew now that when Helen went for her run that her sense, the gift, had tried to tell her something bad was going to happen, but logic intervened and the gift stuttered. Stopped, started, then stopped again and it was this stuttering of the senses that led to her indecisive behaviour that morning.

  Now she felt fully charged as if her nervous system had been hooked up to a new car battery—though now too little, too late. Granny was wrong, the gift did not dissipate the older you got. It just mellowed along with the person, but it was still there. The real gift for those who had it was to be able to recognise it when it reappeared, trust in it when it happened, and tap into its core. None of this made her feel better about herself or her situation. If anything, things felt like they were getting worse. A feeling of acute awareness, the gift, beckoned her to check back on her daughter.

  Kate raked back the bed sheets and raised Helen’s nightdress above the knee to her waist, white cotton panties hiding her modesty. She hooked the dress simultaneously off each shoulder and pulled it down to meet the middle, something she had not been able to do before. She knew Helen wanted her to do it, to look and see. A feeling of petrified anger rose within her while she forced herself to look at the six strawberry scars on either side of Helen’s thighs that needed skin grafts to put right, as right as could be. Stitched scars spread all over her, her face, her chest, her stomach, her waist, her legs, her wrists and her arms, and as Kate traced the scars with her eyes the air got sucked out of the room. She could taste Helen’s terror now. It was in the back of her throat, lumpy, a taste worse than buttermilk.

  Kate closed her eyes and kept them shut for an unknowable amount of time and when they reopened, they were red and darkly circled, and she saw the flames. The bed was engulfed in an aura of reds and yellows speckled with spittles of green and blue that consumed her daughter’s body in a raging, pleading torrent. It lapped from underneath Helen and licked over her body with ferocious motion then shot up and fanned the ceiling in spectacular ripples of colour. Some of the flame reached out and brushed up against her but nothing burnt. Instantly, she saw the true extent of her daughter’s pain. Helen was trapped deep within the casing of her own body, helpless, banging relentlessly with her fists against a transparent shell that locked away her soul and sanity. She could see an obscure version of her daughter wailing in confusion below the surface of her skin as the flames of her aura danced in furious unison to her inept screams. She saw her daughter trapped in a purgatory worse than hell with no way out.

  Now Kate knew what her daughter thought the moment her head fell toward her when she sat napping in the chair. Her futile screams bade for her attention, peering helplessly through those indifferent eyes. Helen was desperately trying to call out to her, to tell her that the worst of her suffering was happening right now and b
y not doing anything about it, she was as much to blame as the monster that put her here. Deep within the recesses of her daughter’s mind was a lucid consciousness that could no longer communicate with the outside world. She wanted to let her mother know that she was little more than a forgotten genie trapped in a bottle, destined to remain there ’til the end of days, and that if she could grant herself one last wish it would be to end the suffering right now.

  Then, as quick as it appeared, the vision of flame faded to black night and the connection between the two of them broke.

  It was enough for Kate to act.

  Kate’s feet were moving. She pulled back the shower curtain, inserted the plug and turned the hot and cold water taps to full rotation and returned to the bedroom while the bath filled. She took one of the Mickey Mouse pillows from behind Helen’s head and placed it over her daughter’s face. With outstretched arms and elbows locked, the weight of her upper body secured the pillow. Kate struggled as the muffled, stifled sounds settled down to wheezes and the uncharacteristic kicking, jolting, thrusting, and recoiling became twitches . . . then stopped altogether. She remained stooped over her daughter’s still body, afraid to move. Afraid that if she took the pillow away now—too soon—one last spasm might kick the life back into her and she’d have to. . . .

  Kate had hardly caught her breath when she saw the medley of colours seep up through Helen’s nightdress and snake quietly along her own flannel nightgown, kissing the contours all the way up to her neck, the feeling warm. The aura then broke into thin ribbons of coloured smoke and seeped into her mouth. Two tendrils streamed up her nostrils in a French inhale and she felt a chill of tired, peaceful satisfaction. She knew that Helen, the very best part of her, was back with her—if only for a short time.

  Kate returned to the bathroom. There she broke open the casing of one of Fran’s disposable razors with a pumice stone, let her dressing gown slip to the floor and closed the door before slipping into the bath.

  Two rainbow coloured streamers rose up from Kate’s chest with the consistency of steam. It happened when her eyes closed for the last time in the sea bath of red. One was the thickness of a stick of helter-skelter rock that a child might bring back from a summer’s holiday to give to her friends. The other was three times the thickness, like an assault-course climbing rope. They danced closely beside each other and at a precise time twined in a pigtail and merged together to form one colourful formation. Minute red and yellow flashes skimmed through it like sparks pirouetting from a poked fire. It swayed above her chest for a moment longer then broke off, leaving a bright contrail in the air as it evaporated through the bathroom door.

  Had Kate lost Fran, people would have referred to her as a widow. Had Fran lost Kate, he would have been a widower, and had Helen lost them both, she would be an orphan. No word exists to describe a parent who has lost a child, such is its ferocity, but if had you asked Kate for one word to describe her pain, she might just have cried some more, taken a deep stammered breath, exhaled slowly and then said,

  “Hell-In.”

  34:

  “Peek-a-boo.”

  Honestly, Alex had no idea what was in the septic tank making those freaky noises. Cutting a section in the top end of the tank the size of a manhole cover, was as arduous as he expected it to be. The music playing in his ears did nothing to quell the anxiety and he lost a few more hairs to his already thinning head. Etching out the hole was like an arachnophobic pulling the shower curtain back on a tarantula. Something in there was unequivocally alive; something was in there making squawking sounds. He just didn’t know what.

  If it were a kitten, as Suzanne confidently assumed, then it came from one of the vet bags. It didn’t just creep up when the lid was off; have a little sniff and then, whoopsy-doo, just fall in. Whatever it was, the tank was acting as an incubator and miraculously keeping it alive. If it were a kitten, he could handle that. That would be some story he could never tell, but what if it was something else? He looked in at the stillness when a stir in the gloop caused a muddy ripple, which was more than enough to satisfy Alex’s adverse curiosity and he hastily made his way back to the cottage.

  Suzanne was back from her long walk in time to witness Alex clatter in through the back door with slapping feet.

  “Suzanne, you need to come quick! I don’t know— Well, it looks like . . . . No, you have to see for yourself. I don’t know what the hell it is. Your bag, bring your bag. Your, eh, your medical bag, bring your medical bag. I don’t know any more than that, come on, quickly.”

  Then they were both back at the septic tank, minus Bentley. Suzanne came more prepared, wearing a pair of latex gloves and a surgical mask lined with Vicks inhaler. She handed Alex the same.

  Why didn’t I think of that, fucking stink? The way he danced on the spot like a young child needing the toilet gave her reason to worry and she wondered what he might have uncovered.

  “Look on the inside lip to the left,” Alex said, directing Suzanne from the ground when she stepped up on the ladder. “Around the area where Bentley was clawing.” He tried to remain calm as if he knew exactly what she should be looking at, but all he had seen was the beginnings of a ripple.

  Suzanne tentatively lowered her gaze into the cesspit, tracking Alex’s instruction and hugging either side of the serrated edge with her latex thumbs. The level of putrid fluid was above the ledge of the lip and the surface deadly still but far from smooth. Pockets of sediment and swellings of molten brown that verged on black resembled a pot of over-cooked rice pudding with a crust. Then there was nothing, nothing else to see, nothing obvious . . . until it moved . . . and a sound echoed within the great big caesarean opening of the septic tank—a tiny splutter.

  Suzanne almost jumped out of her skin, her head already planning its escape—Alex made a head start—but her eyes kept focus long enough to see that little else happened. If some long, black slimy tentacle arm was to burst through the surface, wrap around her waist and drag her into the stink-hole it would have done so by now. Though her heart beat with the speed of ten ticking clocks set a second apart, Suzanne held her composure and she moved her head in for a closer look.

  Alex managed a couple of paces before realising Suzanne wasn’t going anywhere and he shifted back with snoopy interest, relieved that she did not spot his cowardly false start. Not only did Suzanne remain but if she stooped in any farther she might just fall in. He wondered what the hell she was looking so passionately at.

  The obscure silhouette ruptured the uneven surface and slowly revealed itself with unmistakeable characteristics that captivated Suzanne. She watched it rise out of the gloop like a 3D metal pin impression. It was lying on its back. First, a tiny hand extended, fingers spread, and the dark maple syrup that bonded it to the untidy surface began to thin and split in arcs to reveal a tiny arm. She followed where she thought the contour should be. Submerged was its neck and part of its left ear but the face revealed itself in perfect shape as if it had just emerged out of an oil slick. Both knees presented themselves with the curvature of small, ripened plums.

  “HolybloodyJesusmotherofGodalmightytonight,” Suzanne said aloud.

  “What? What the hell is it?” Alex asked but did not move to find out.

  The adrenaline that flooded her veins and almost forced her to scarper, washed away and the fear that webbed her insides all but dried up. Her heart hammered with the same intensity as before but this time the rhythm triggered a build-up of tension around her pelvic floor and her muscles contracted throughout the rest of her body . . . then uncoiled in fluid motion. Suzanne’s brain lit up like the night sky on the Fourth of July.

  “WoooohaOooohAh,” she spurted with a capsule of blissful surprise, unable to control her spasms. Her right arm came off the tank and pressed in tight between the legs of her jeans, and when her knees buckled, she did well to stop herself falling from the stepladd
er. The lights went out and Suzanne rapidly cooled down.

  Alex stood baffled while his wife basked in the afterglow of whatever the fuck that was, a dour look on his face.

  She could have been riding the shaft of a wooden horse the way she gyrated up and down on her arm. He recognised the distinctive sound her voice made and those actions confirmed—sort of—what just transpired. But here, surrounded by all this mess and stink, and so all of a sudden . . . . To say this felt odd was an understatement. It was as if he had just intruded on his wife’s privacy, caught her in the throes of unadulterated passion with herself or somebody else, or something else. Whatever it was, he felt he should never have been privy to it and a surge of repugnant jealously played over him.

  “What’s up? What’s the matter? What is it? What just happened there? You . . . you looked like you just had a bloody orgasm.”

  Suzanne straightened up, calm and relaxed. She could have been standing poolside sipping on a margarita.

  “Well, what is it?” Alex repeated in his calmest voice. “What did you see?”

  It couldn’t have been more than eighteen inches head to toe and looked like a chocolate covered tot but for the stench, now smelling of roses. Suzanne, with a hint of excitement about her presence, peered back into the tank and hesitated, then said, “It’s a baby. I know it can’t be, but it is. It’s—

  (And its head fell ever so slightly toward her; the level of seminal fluid reached the corner of its tiny mouth but without danger of drowning her. And the tiny hand that had extended out of the slick siphoned the liquid into its mouth. And it chewed but that was not possible for a baby of its size—none of this was possible but that did not stop it from happening. And then its eyes blinked wide open and even though hidden in shade, she could see they were big, blue, and beautiful and she knew it was staring at her, beckoning her to come and claim . . . .)