Prodigal Blues

by Gary A Braunbeck

  "Take it easy, Pretty Boy," he whispered into my ear. "They are long past being able to hurt you. They are long past being hurt. Take a good look, Pretty Boy, look long and hard. See that hand right there? That belonged to a little girl named Jennifer. She was four. It took me three days to super-glue that hand back together, and even then I did not find all the bones, there were too many. That is why there are so many pieces. Unless you were right there watching when he cleansed them of their undisciplined flesh, you would have no idea which bones belonged to who. But I was there for all their cleansings, hear me? And I know all the bones by name, all of them!" He spun me around to face him. "I did not have to dig up any of them, either." I started to say something—or maybe I started to scream again, I don't know—but he pressed his hand over my mouth again. "You do not get to talk now, you get to pay attention. Do you know why we were always so careful to make the 'One' day food last as long as possible? Come on, Pretty Boy, take a guess!" On the last word, he twisted my head around so I could have another good look at the bones.

  "Oh, Jesus…" I groaned.

  "You see, we did not always get 'One' days. Sometimes during the meetings one of us would squeal when we should not have, or maybe he would see a tear in one of our eyes, or sometimes one of us would have the gall to bleed too much!" He snapped my head back around; he was right in my face now. "Have you ever been starving, Pretty Boy? Have you ever been so hungry that the emptiness in your stomach begins to swell? Do you have any idea what it is like to go without food for so long that you start chasing spiders and cockroaches? I once broke Arnold's nose over a couple of silverfish!"

  "You got that right," said Arnold.

  "I will let you in on a secret, Pretty Boy—when you have been left chained up in a basement room for two weeks with only water from a toilet tank to drink and the occasional bug for protein, you will eat anything that is put in front of you, even if it is something that you had to help slaughter, even if it was something that had a name and could call you by yours. I suppose we should be grateful that Grendel had a thing about germs and at least cooked it first!" He yanked me to my feet, spun me around, and pushed me down into the chair.

  "Roll it over here, Arnold."

  "Oh, hey, look, man, I do not think we need—"

  "DID I ASK FOR AN OPINION?"

  "Settle down, dude."

  In three actions so quick and smooth they might as well have been the same movement, Christopher pulled the gun from the back of his pants, spun around, and fired a shot into the pillow on my bed; the gun made a short, sharp whistling noise like a single tweet from a bird, and the air was suddenly alive with dancing bits of stuffing.

  "I swear to God," said Christopher through clenched teeth, "the next one goes through his right eye if you guys do not stop giving me grief. Roll it over here right now, Arnold."

  Arnold shook his head and sighed sadly as he rose to his feet. "I hate it when you get this way, man. This is not you." He rolled the typing stand and computer around the bed and toward me. He looked at Christopher as if he was going to say something else, then thought better of it. He positioned the computer in front of me, then reached out and gave my forearm an apologetic squeeze before returning to the second bed.

  Christopher stood beside me, pressing the silencer against my temple. It was hotter than hell and scorched my hair and skin; I bit down on my lip and waited for the pain to ebb. I wasn't about to try anything right now, even something as harmless as moving my head.

  With his other hand, Christopher reached out and used the computer's trackpad to open a series of sub-folders labeled "Pictures", "Video", "Ravenswood", and "Cleansings".

  "Please," I whispered. "Don't…."

  "Sorry, Pretty-Boy, but when we put on a show, you get the whole program."

  He highlighted a file in the "Cleansings" folder: Connie.

  "Connie was special in more ways than one," he said. "Grendel would schedule private meetings between her and his friends—one at a time, of course. And these private meetings were expensive. Connie never said anything about them—or, at least she did not say anything about them for a long time.

  "After he took Denise, Connie started acting different. She talked more. She complained. She started saying no. She started telling us secrets, like where he kept extra keys and cash. I think she realized he was training Denise to be her replacement for the trips into town. I think she must have been jealous. She would be rude to Denise, pinch her or slap her when she thought Grendel was not looking. He put Connie in the basement with us, and gave Connie's room upstairs to Denise. Connie did not like that. She tried to hurt Denise the next chance she got. She tried to cut her face with a knife. And that was it."

  He double-clicked the file and a video screen came up. He enlarged the screen to three times its size; there was no loss of video quality.

  He pressed harder against my temple with the still-hot silencer. "You will watch every second of this, Pretty Boy, or I will put a bullet in your kneecap."

  "Why are you doing this?" I sounded on the verge of tears or hysterics, and hated myself for the loss of control.

  When he spoke again, his voice sounded almost sympathetic. "Because I do not want to be the only person who knows what he did down there, and I will not make any of them watch."

  He started the video. "Welcome to Ravenswood."

  I was looking at a large room with gray cinderblock walls. Everything in the room was illuminated by harsh fluorescent lights that hung from the ceiling. Metal shelves lined the walls on the left and right. Specimen jars of various sizes were on the shelves; I couldn't quite make out what was floating inside them, then decided I didn't really want to. In the left corner of the room sat two large medical waste barrels with locking lids. In the center of the room was a long metal table with straps hanging from each corner. The table was bordered with a gutter on both sides and both ends, and in each of the corners was something that looked like pool table pocket.

  I had cleaned the School of Medicine's building long enough to recognize an autopsy table when I saw one. Except none of those had straps.

  Two medium-sized operating room lights, for the moment turned off, hung over the table. A tray with a white cover sat next to the far right corner.

  A door opened and a young man came in. It took me a moment to recognize him; Christopher still had his nose and upper lip. I suppose the metal jaw should have been the giveaway.

  Christopher wore tight rubber gloves. Leaving the door opened behind him, he walked to the table and uncovered the tray, revealing the medical instruments underneath. Then he switched on the two overhead lights, positioning them with well-practiced movements. After that, he pulled a step stool from under the table and crossed toward the camera; setting down the stool, he disappeared from view for a moment before re-emerging three times as large. His eyes were glazed and dead-looking. He checked the camera settings, shifted its position slightly, then dropped out of sight once again.

  As he was replacing the step stool, an older man and younger girl entered the room. Both wore flimsy hospital gowns. The man had rubber gloves; the girl did not.

  Even though I'd never seen her before, it was obvious from the characteristics of her face that this was Connie. She was carrying a stuffed doll that I recognized; Blossom, of The Powerpuff Girls fame. The man whispered something in her ear, and Connie, smiling, took off the robe and climbed naked onto the table, dropping Blossom to the floor as she did so. The man signaled Christopher to close the door, and then, for the first time, stood still long enough for me to get a good, clear look at his face.

  I had seen Grendel before. Several times. You've seen him, too, remember? He's the guy who bags your groceries at the store on Friday night; the man who checks your gas meter every other month; the fellow who manages the graveyard shift at that Steak 'n' Shake twenty minutes from your apartment; he's that one guy who pumps your gas at the station downtown, or the other guy behind the Customer Service counter at the depar
tment store, or that dude who empties the trash receptacles in the food court at the mall. Remember him now?

  That's whose face I was looking at in the video. Right—that guy.

  Grendel checked the positioning of the lights, all the while whispering things to Connie that I was glad I could not hear. She giggled and nodded her head; this was some kind of a game Daddy was playing with her. Grendel signaled Christopher to assist him with strapping down Connie's arms and legs. Once that was done, Grendel took off his hospital gown and massaged his penis into a stiff erection, which he then covered with lubricant from a tube Christopher handed to him. Once he was satisfactorily slick, Grendel turned and climbed up onto the table, positioning himself between Connie's legs. I watched Blossom then. She was smiling, looking toward the camera with those terribly cute, oversized eyes. I could almost hear her telling Bubbles and Buttercup that the city of Townsville was under attack again and Mojo Jojo was holding Professor Plutonium hostage and the Mayor was on the phone saying "Oh, dear," over and over and to top it all off, her favorite hair brush was missing, would the terror never end?

  I stared at Blossom as the leg of the table behind her shook and shuddered from the constantly-shifting weight above; it would jerk slightly forward, then right itself before jerking forward again, a steady rhythm for a while, then getting faster, and sweet, sweet Blossom, she just sat there smiling at me, shaking from the vibrations, never complaining, not even when the shaking became so fast and hard she lost her balance and fell over on her side; she never stopped looking or smiling at me, and I decided then that she was my new favorite Powerpuff Girl, and I sure hoped that Buttercup wouldn't cop an attitude over this; after all, she'd been my favorite until now, but Blossom was here when the chips were down, and she lay there singing and smiling and telling me stories about cute pink fuzzy bunnies, never looking away, not even when the shadows above her began to shift and move and jerk and spread; not even when the straps began to pull so tight she could have bounced a quarter off them; not even when one of Grendel's bare feet stepped on her for a moment; not even when the shadows above began flailing as something slopped over the side of the shaking table and spattered her lovely outfit; at no time did Blossom ever behave in a less than ladylike manner, and I decided that I was in love with her.

  Then one of Christopher's shoes passed by and kicked Blossom away. I was so startled that I blinked and looked up at the table where Grendel, covered in gore, was on his knees ejaculating into the opened stomach cavity of something that looked like it might have once been a human being but was now only a steaming heap of bones and liquids and tissue and blood and—

  —I lurched forward, shoving everything out of my way as I tried to get to the bathroom but my foot caught on the typewriter stand and I fell forward onto the bone pile, then dropped to the floor, the bones raining down on my face and chest as my arms jerked and flailed, knocking them away in a chorus of clattering as I rolled to the side before my stomach exploded, reaching out for the other bed as I felt the first burp of bile splatter into my throat, then I was on my feet and staggering ahead, hands over my mouth and praying my legs didn't melt away beneath me and there it was, there was the bathroom, but now someone was yelling my name and someone else was yelling Christopher's and a part of the doorway splintered away with the chirping of a bird and I threw myself forward and onto my knees, sliding across the smooth blue tile to the toilet whose seat Rebecca had thought to leave up and then I was doubled over, clutching the sides of the bowl as my torso heaved and my stomach blew up and my throat was scorched by the flood of vomit that came sailing out for what seemed hours, giving me so little time to pull in a breath between bursts I thought I'd pass out again and I didn't want to do that because then the bones would get me….

  When it was finally done, I fell backward, coughing, the foul taste of everything I'd eaten in the last twelve hours swimming in my mouth and forcing dry heaves; I had one arm pressed against the toilet, the other against the wall behind me, and my legs splayed out like a marionette hastily dropped in mid-performance. I gasped and spit and coughed and groaned, my throat and chest feeling far to swollen for my body to contain, my vision obscured by the tears in my eyes and my eyes forever seared but what they'd seen after Blossom had been kicked away…

  "Are you all right?" asked someone. "He did not hit you, did he?"

  I looked up and saw Thomas in the middle of the doorway; Arnold and Rebecca stood behind him. I saw where Christopher's shot had struck the door frame and realized how close he'd come to hitting the back of my skull and almost vomited again, only there was nothing left.

  "He only helped Grendel to protect us," said Arnold. "If Christopher ever refused to help with a cleansing, then one of us would have been next."

  "And he would have made Christopher pick," said Thomas.

  Rebecca was crying. "We were the four who had been with him the longest, you see? The four of us were all the family we had. He had to help him, don't you see?" At realizing she'd just a contraction, she gasped, her hands flying up to cover her mouth as her eyes widened with terror. Arnold and Thomas looked as if they were waiting for the next bomb to go off.

  "Whatta you know," I choked out. "The world didn't end."

  Tears welled in her eyes—I hadn't until that moment realized that tear ducts could still function with a glass eye—and shook her head, not blinking.

  "It's okay," I said. "It's okay, really."

  Thomas rolled his chair a little farther into the doorway. "We want to go home. Will you help us?"

  "Do not beg him!" shouted Christopher from somewhere behind them. "I will not have any of you ever beg for anything again!"

  "What do you say, man?" asked Arnold.

  Rebecca lowered her hands, then pushed past Thomas, knelt down in front of me, and laid her palm gently against my cheek. When she spoke, her voice was a sad and ruined whisper from a darkness where bones were known by name and faces were things other people took for granted: "…p-please…ohgod, Mark, please…."

  Her hand so soft and sad against my cheek; Thomas so small in his chair; Arnold so tired with a face so scarred; these three little ones, with big brother stewing behind them; my captors, who were, in their way, as much at my mercy as I was at theirs.

  I reached up and took hold of Rebecca's hand, then turned my face into her palm and kissed it. It seemed like the right thing to do.

  "How touching," said Christopher from the doorway. "If we are all finished with the lovey-dovey, perhaps we could gather up our stuff and get the hell out of here." He stopped, then laughed at his having just cursed. "You're right," he said. "Curses and contractions, and the world didn't end." His eyes narrowed; he looked at Arnold. "It feels strange."

  "Seriously?"

  "Yes. It actually feels strange on my tongue to use a contraction again."

  Arnold nodded his head. "Do it again."

  "No. You try it."

  "I don't think so—whoa. That does feel weird, man."

  "Let me! Let me!" Thomas was actually bouncing in his chair. "I want to try it."

  Christopher laughed. "Go ahead. Bet you can't."

  "Bet I can."

  "Then do it."

  Arnold knelt by the arm of the wheelchair. "C'mon, Thomas—dude, that feels good! I'm gonna say it again—c'mon! Oh, wow!"

  "Okay, okay," said Thomas. "Let me see…"

  Christopher sighed in mock irritation, then winked at Arnold.

  "Okay, okay, I got," Thomas all but squealed. "I can use contractions anytime I want! There!"

  "Didn't quite make, dude," said Arnold.

  Thomas looked crestfallen. "I didn't?"

  "You did that time."

  "I—?" Then his face brightened as he replayed it. "Oh, yeah…I did, didn't I?"

  "My man is on a serious roll," laughed Arnold, slapping Thomas's shoulder with great affection.

  Thomas wasn't stopping. "Can't! Won't! Ain't!"

  "Turning into a regular party animal, my man.
"

  "Isn't. Wasn't! Couldn't! Wouldn't! Shouldn't!"

  "Don't get carried away, now," said Rebecca. Then, to me: "I gave him a pain shot just before you woke up. It takes a little while before it kicks in with him. Then he just becomes goofy."

  "Didn't…uh…aren't! Yeah! Uh…."

  "I think that's most of them," said Arnold. Then: "Hold on a second. 'That's' a contraction."

  "It's!" shouted Thomas "What's! Oh, boy! Uh…uh…"

  "Don't," said Christopher.

  "Yeah—don't, that's another one. Then there's—there's there's, and then—"

  "No," said Christopher. "I wasn't prompting you—"

  "Wasn't!" squealed Thomas.

  "Already said that," whispered Arnold.

  "Knock it off!" Christopher wasn't trying to dampen their fun—it was obvious they hadn't enjoyed anything in a long, long time—but he was trying to get things under control. "What I meant was don't keep doing that, okay? Thomas?"

  "…okay…"

  "Please don't pout."

  "I'm not."

  "Then what are you doing?"

  "I'm…I'm thinking."