by Isaac Thorne
“Here, now!” she shouted. “I know you’re hurt, Mr. Gordon, but that’s no way to behave. These people are here to do stories about us for the nightly news. They’re not trying to hurt you.” She paused, then added. “And they’re not trying to embarrass you, either, if that’s what you’re thinking. You’re a nice man, Graham, but you’re still a man. So I feel like I need to tell you that this is not about your ego.”
Staff grinned in spite of the circumstances. He understood why the older woman had added that last bit. The expression on the constable’s face was an all too familiar one. There was rage in the man’s eyes. If he had been a cartoon, his pupils would have turned into little TNT symbols as red crept up from his collar to the top of his head like an old-fashioned mercury thermometer that was about to explode. Staff himself had grown up a little angry, mostly as a result of coming of age gay in a smallish Southern town, he thought. He resented having to hide who he was as his parents had advised him to do. He was still angry on some level but had become capable of managing it. He had learned—some through counseling and some on his own—that rage in men was often rooted in untreated anxiety, depression, and childhood shaming or humiliation. No doubt the constable felt humiliated by this turn of events. These days, Staff’s own anger was most evident when he feared missing a deadline or getting into some other kind of trouble at work that might cost him a paycheck, or his job. Even on those occasions, he had learned to breathe, to confront the feelings rather than bury them and deal with any problems or misunderstandings head-on. Graham Gordon had not yet learned these lessons.
Patsy, like most women, seemed to understand the source of male anger as well, which is why she added her “ego” speech, Staff thought. Unfortunately, it was precisely the wrong thing to do. Women think you deal with male anger by attempting to shame and suppress it. It was that sort of misunderstanding on the part of women and the inability to communicate feelings on the part of men that led to so many centuries of mistrust and bad feelings between the sexes. Well, that was his opinion, anyway. Maybe even an uninformed one. But Staff was able to see that what the older woman thought would douse the constable’s rage was actually going to stoke it if Staff himself didn’t intervene, and quickly.
“Hey, bro,” he said and stepped between Patsy and the constable. To his left and at a safer distance now, Afia continued to shoot video with her iPhone. Thankfully, the angry fellow hadn’t broken it when he’d knocked it out of her hands. He went down on one knee and peered into the crawl space access behind the Gordon man. “How the hell did you get out through that tiny crawl space? Must’ve been hard. I don’t think I could’ve done it. That’s pretty badass.”
The constable’s jaw remained clenched, but a shift in his body language—fists unclenched, shoulders relaxed, slight counterpoise at the hips and legs—indicated to Staff that he’d affected a change, thrown a little water on the fire, perhaps. There was that, and then there were his eyes. Suddenly they weren’t pinched in the middle of his brow anymore, but sad and hazel and sporting oddly feminine lashes, like the hazel eyes of the black bitch during one of her transitions.
“Knock, knock,” Graham said. His sad eyes were open, but unfocused, not looking at any of the three other people surrounding him. Staff glanced at Patsy, who shrugged at him, and Afia, who was still intent on her recording, then turned back to Graham.
“Who’s—”
“Who’th there?” Graham interrupted, continuing the joke on his own. “Europe. Europe who? No, you’re a poo!”
Staff grinned, not because the joke was funny, but because he was surprised by it. This was the type of joke Graham had been texting to Patsy a little while before, when she and Staff had gone to get the ladder. Beside him, Staff heard Afia snort as she attempted to stifle a chuckle. Patsy was less amused. “Graham,” she said. “I really don’t think this is the type of thing the news crew came here to tell stories about.”
“Knock, knock.”
“Oh for God’s sake.”
“Who’th there?”
“Graham, please stop.”
“Police. Police who? Police open the door, it’th cold out here.”
Patsy sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose between her enormous Coke bottle glasses. “This isn’t helpful. Why are you doing this?”
At his hips, Graham’s hands began to tremble, curling themselves into fists. His sad eyes had transitioned to something that Staff thought resembled fear or worry. His teeth chattered in his skull as he spoke again, the words of the joke coming rapid fire from between his busted and blood-encrusted lips.
“Knock, knock? Who’th there? Pathy. Pathy who? Pathy my father was a murderer and he killed my mom and Grace Athton and Darek Athton and now he’th controlling my body pleath help me!”
Staff looked at Afia. He’d wondered why she was choosing to record this encounter with Graham after telling him that there would be no interview. Maybe she’d changed her mind. If so, he was glad she had. She still held the iPhone aimed at the freakshow in front of them, but she’d cut her eyes toward him with alarm. She’d always assumed that Graham Gordon’s father Lee had had something to do with the death of her father Darek, but it had apparently never occurred to her that he’d also had something to do with her mother’s mysterious disappearance four years before that. She was still processing it, but some part of her was already connecting dots. Staff could see it in her eyes. The lower rims of them had reddened and welled up a little. The professional journalist inside her would be trying to prevent her from showing she’d been hurt, at least until she was safely enclosed in her own room at the end of any given long day, when the lights and cameras had been shut down, and the demons were allowed to come out and play with her head.
When he was sure she wasn’t going to freak out on him, Staff returned his attention to Graham Gordon, but the Graham in Graham Gordon was gone. The eyes in his skull flickered alive with rage and hate, they were thrust open and pinched at the bridge of his nose. His nostrils flared wide, and his twisted mouth bore what looked to Staff like it would have been a snarl under normal circumstances, when it wasn’t obscured by the swelling of what were probably significant skull fractures as a result of his fall.
“GET BACK IN THERE YOU FAGGOTY-ASTH LITTLE SHIT!” the furious man in front of them screamed. He squeezed his eyes shut as he did so, and then raised his head wolf-like on the chubby roll at the back of his neck and bellowed into the late morning autumn air. “GET BACK I SAID! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”
Staff felt Afia’s hand on his shoulder then. He turned to look at her and saw questions in her eyes that mirrored what he was thinking. What the fuck was wrong with her elementary school peer Graham Gordon and how the fuck did he know her coworker Staff was homosexual?
Suddenly he remembered their interview with Jeremy Beard that morning. I’ve never been in a fight in my life but that night, with all of those weird flashes of people in my head, I felt out of control of my own body, the kid had told them. It’s almost like someone else was in control of me just then, like I was being possessed.
Staff patted Afia’s hand reassuringly. “I don’t think he’s talking to me,” he said. “Remember what Jeremy Beard said about what he experienced here? If what he told us is true, and based on what the constable here just said, this man might not actually be Graham Gordon.”
“Staff,” Afia said. “I’ll be honest. I’m scared, and I don’t know what to do right now. Should I keep recording this...this...whatever it is?”
“If you can, do. We might need it later.”
Cords and bulging veins stood out on Graham’s neck and forearms now. His teeth were clenched tightly together behind the open grimace of his mouth. To Staff, he looked like he was constipated and straining mightily in a frustrated effort to evacuate his bowels. He stamped his right foot on the cinder block on which he stood: once, twice. Then he bellowed again, loud enough to scare off a wake of vultures that had taken up residence on the remains of a gigant
ic walnut tree at the edge of the woods behind the house. As the vultures took flight, the weight and angle of their take-off was enough to cause the tree’s rotted trunk to buckle under them. The dead giant groaned loudly and crashed into the overgrown backyard of the Gordon place. Staff, Afia, and Patsy all winced when it landed, but Graham, caught up in the throes of whatever had hold of him, was either unaware of what had just happened or simply unaffected by it.
At long last, he appeared to compose himself, although his eyes were still alight with hate. He stepped off the fallen cinder block wall and lunged at Afia, possibly intending to grab the iPhone out of her hands. She stepped backward instinctively while both Staff and Patsy raced toward him, trying to block. This only angered him more. He grabbed for Staff, balling up the neck of the video journalist’s T-shirt in his left hand and landing a claw-shaped right hand against his throat. Then he squeezed. Hard. Staff clutched and batted at the other man’s arms but to no avail. He could feel the life draining out of him as he gasped for breath. His chest hurt, and his vision was going dark around the periphery as his cells were depleted of oxygen. He felt his body going limp against the constable’s grip when, suddenly, he was turned loose. He collapsed to the ground on his hands and knees, finally able to draw breath again. He glanced up to see the constable writhing in pain on the ground in front of him, his hands cupping his balls. Next, an older feminine hand came into view, offering Staff assistance in getting back to his feet.
“What,” Staff started, but was interrupted by a coughing fit. His throat felt scratchy, and the cool air of autumn stung it as it fed his body with fresh oxygen. When he was able to control himself, he started again. “What the hell just happened?”
“Crazy men have testicles, too, dear,” Patsy replied. “He was squeezing the life out of you, so I thought I’d give him a taste of his own medicine.”
“And I got it on video,” Afia said and laughed.
“I guess they do,” Staff said to Patsy. “I guess they do. But maybe we should go around front before he’s able to stand up again, huh? We could go inside and lock the door if it locks, or we could just lock ourselves in the pickup until the ambulance and sheriff’s deputies arrive. If he’s still acting like that when they get here, they’ll have to sedate him or take him into custody or...something. I don’t know. I’m having trouble thinking clearly right now. Need to sit down for a minute and get my breath back.”
“Let’s go to the truck, then,” Patsy offered. “Even if this old place does have a lock on it, I’m not sure it works.” She wrapped an arm around Staff’s waist. Afia pulled up on his other side and allowed him to put an arm around her shoulder. Together, the two women supported him as they made their way from the side of the Gordon place back to the vehicles at the end of the driveway.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” Patsy added. She glanced back at the writhing constable to make sure he was not giving chase. “Graham’s always been such a nice boy. I know he’s been through a lot over the past day or so, but he’s acting like a man possessed.”
Knock, knock? Who’th there? Pathy. Pathy who? Pathy my father was a murderer and he killed my mom and Grace Athton and Darek Athton and now he’s controlling my body pleath help me!
Staff nodded and met Afia’s eyes. “Yeah. A man possessed.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THAT CUNT! THAT GODDAMN PIECE OF SHIT CUNT!
Lee Gordon rolled to and fro on the ground beside his crumbling house, both hands clutching his injured and throbbing balls. He wanted to shout the words he was thinking at the old bat who had laid such a bitch move on him while he was trying to take care of a little business. Only old bats and bitches go for the balls, after all. Men, especially men of strength and honor, avoid hitting below the belt. It’s a sign of weakness. Cowardice. Only women and limp-dick little boys ever go there. He probably should have guessed it would happen, though. The skinny man with the camera was the black bitch daughter’s lackey, apparently trying to suck up to her enough to make a move on that brown sugar pussy. The old bat, on the other hand, needed both the little black girl and her sissy-boy to paint the pretty picture she wanted to paint of this piece of shit small town in which he’d lived most of his previous life and had become stuck in throughout his afterlife.
When the pain in his nuts finally began to subside, Lee swiveled his head and scanned the area around him, seeking out the trio who had just become his number one reason to retain his grip on his son’s body. He was just in time to catch sight of them as they disappeared around the corner, toward the front of the house. He’d heard the skinny cuckold say something about going inside the house, but the old bat had dissuaded him, telling him that she didn’t know whether the locks worked. That meant they were probably trying to get away, heading for someone’s car, maybe.
I HAD A CHANCE TO LIVE A NORMAL LIFE AGAIN, Lee shouted at his only son’s consciousness, which he currently held at bay under their shared stream. NOW I HAVE TO KILL AGAIN, YOU LITTLE SHIT. YOU FUCKED THIS UP, JUST LIKE YOU ALWAYS FUCKED UP EVERYTHING. YOU DID IT. YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT YOUR GODDAMN NOSE OUT OF IT AND LET ME GET ON WITH GETTIN’ ON. KEEP THAT IN MIND. IF THIS BODY ENDS UP IN PRISON, I’LL BE GIVING IT BACK TO YOU. I’D RATHER BE DEAD THAN SOME PRISON RAPIST’S BITCH BOY. I’M ONLY ALLOWING YOU TO STAY ALIVE INSIDE HERE UNTIL I KNOW FOR SURE HOW THIS ALL TURNS OUT, YOU OBNOXIOUS PISSANT LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT. SOON AS I FIX EVERYTHING YOU JUST FUCKED UP, YOU’RE DEAD.
***
Graham was laughing inside his bubble-walled prison. The vibrations from his giddiness rippled the membrane, making the world beyond it look like a reflection in a pond he’d just skipped a rock across. He’d been right. His dead father’s grip on his consciousness was in jeopardy. The longer the old man kept control of Graham’s physical body—which was probably going on twenty-four hours now without food or water and was suffering from a not insignificant amount of physical pain—the faster he exhausted himself and the less control he could exert on his internal fight with his son.
The jokes helped. They took his mind off the strain of breaking through, much the way they had when he had been trying to scale the stringers in the cellar. Moreover, they seemed to irritate his father. That was a bonus.
His brief emergence to the forefront of his own body had exhausted Graham himself. Coming forward like that, breaking the membrane and seizing control of everything at once, must be what being born feels like. For an instant, he’d felt a gentle autumn breeze fluffing his short hair, felt the kiss of the October sun on his skin. Then the pain set in, taking his breath and his clear head with it. He’d had to hurry. Had to get the words out of his mouth before his father was able to wrestle control of his physical body back.
Now his dad was screaming at him again. Shouting that it was somehow Graham’s fault that his father didn’t have a second chance at living a life. Shouting at him that it was his fault that his dad was a murdering asshole in his previous life and in this one. The flood of rage might have overwhelmed and cowed him as recently as a few hours ago. Now, he was too exhausted from his breakthrough to care.
Graham Gordon curled himself into his metaphysical ball, his resting state, and smiled. Had it been visible to anyone, the little cloud that was Graham Gordon’s consciousness would have looked like it was glowing.
Knock knock, he thought.
***
From the stream, there was only this response to Lee Gordon’s tirade: Knock knock. Lee chose to ignore it for now. The brat had taken him by surprise when he’d emerged into the sunlight. He’d been able to retake control of his body, however briefly, and spilled his guts about the little war that he was waging from inside his own skull. Would the trio of troublemakers believe him? It probably didn’t matter at this point. In his rage, he’d lashed out at them, physically attacked them. They were scared of him now, and that was enough of a mistake to ruin everything he’d worked for up to this point. Now that Graham had found a path to the surface from under the strea
m, it was imperative that Lee shut them all down, silence them so that it wouldn’t happen again—couldn’t happen again. He’d see to that.
He rolled onto his knees and sat up on his haunches, breaths coming in ragged gasps as the movement squeezed at the sensitive coils in the tops of his testicles. The old bitch must have damaged something. He’d been dead a long time, but he still remembered how it hurt to get kicked in the nuts. It was usually a temporary breath-stealing pain that, when it finally started to subside, dampened down to a throb. This was new pain apart from the pulsation caused by the initial attack. He considered trying to shove the pain downward, into the stream, allowing Graham to have to deal with that like he’d done in the cellar, but he feared that it might create additional pathways to the surface. Better to suck it up himself than potentially lose control over the entire body, even if it did feel like someone tied an anvil to the neck of his scrotum and was allowing it to dangle there in mid-air.
Carefully, Lee climbed to his feet again. He stood bow-legged, allowing his balls to hang free of restriction from this body’s thick thighs. He patted down the front pockets of his pants. In his right was his son’s devil phone device that the Afton girl had returned to him in the cellar. In his left, he felt a clump of hardness in the familiar shape of keys on a keyring. He shoved his left hand into that pocket, mindful of his aching testicles, and retrieved the set. In addition to the four shiny metal keys that occupied the ring was a round black piece of plastic. On one side of the plastic was what looked like a red button. On the other side were two buttons that were labeled with tiny pictures: an open padlock and a closed padlock. Below the buttons were the new-fangled Toyota logo, the three-circle doohickey that Lee always thought someone had probably just doodled on a notepad while on a boring phone conversation. His dumbass kid must still be driving a car from the 1990s. There’s no way they would’ve held on to a logo like that for more than a few years. It didn’t even have the company name in it anywhere. Well, at least Lee could now narrow down which car was his, provided the Japanese hadn’t taken over America in his absence and were demanding that everyone drive a Toyota now.
