Grimm Memorials

by R. Patrick Gates

  Edmund had been manipulating Mother on a regular basis to get her to give them whatever they wanted. Soon after they were born Edmund had begun invading her mind whenever they needed anything and had demanded incessantly, at first in images, later in words, that she serve them. Edmund was very adept at playing her. Eleanor didn't realize until after her mother's death that the power he had over her, combined with her intruding thoughts, had driven their mother crazy and led to her death.

  Eleanor remembered that for a week before her mother's death, nightmares about her mother had tortured her. She'd dreamt that her mother was being devoured by spiders and snakes, and being ripped apart by animals. On the night that her mother dived headfirst from the second-floor window, Eleanor awoke from a viscious dream where her mother was being torn to shreds by a pack of wolves. In the darkness she saw Edmund's eyes shining as she heard her mother's diminishing scream, stopped by a soft thud and a snap!

  "Humpty Dumpty had a great fall," Edmund whispered in the dark.

  "And all the king's horses and all the king's men," the memory of Edmund's voice faded and became the voice of Davy Torrez's mother, "couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again." She closed the book and put it down next to the bed.

  "I bet I could put Humpty back together, Mom. I'm real good at puzzles," Davy said.

  "Oh, I'm sure you could," his mother agreed.

  "Can you read it again?" Davy pleaded.

  "I've read it four times now, that's enough. Time for bed, it's after midnight."

  "But I'm afraid of the nightmare witch."

  "You won't have any more nightmares. You're just going to dream happy dreams about Mother Goose and all her happy rhymes. That's what they do; whenever you read them you always have happy dreams," she told her son and tucked him in.

  Davy looked suitably impressed with this knowledge and decided that, if his mother said it was true, then it was. His father was always making stuff up, but his mom always told the truth. He snuggled down in the bed. Eleanor felt Davy's mother's lips lightly upon her forehead as mother kissed son goodnight. Memories of her own mad mother faded and Eleanor sat up straight.

  Before you die, you'll face the truth! Edmund said from behind her.

  Eleanor looked in the rearview mirror. He was lying in an open coffin in the back of the hearse. "I'm not dying," she said solemnly. She took another swig of tequila. "Watch and learn, brother. Watch and learn." Eleanor streamed fully into Davy Torrez's sleeping mind like a moonbeam through glass. She flooded his sleeping senses with feelings of calmness and security. She brought warmth with her, like being immersed in a hot soapy bath, and a teasing, tickling feeling that pulled the sleeping boy deep into the subterranean lay ers of sleep. He sank in the pleasant sensations she bathed him in and soon reached the level of dreams.

  Eleanor began to work feverishly. Whispering softly to herself, she conjured images to dance through Davy's mind. She constructed dreams lasting no more than a minute apiece, but each packed with illusions in a frenzy of activity in his brain. Eleanor was filling Davy's dreams with all the Mother Goose characters his mother had just read to him about. He frolicked with the dish and the spoon, and laughed with the dog when the cow jumped over the moon. He watched Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat devour a ten-pound ham between them, and searched Old Mother Hubbard's bare cupboards with her. But the best dream of all was the one where, he, Davy Torrez, was the only person in the world who could put Humpty Dumpty back together again. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again, but five-year-old Davy Torrez could.

  He woke suddenly from that happy dream, laughter spilling from his lips, and heard a sound. A shadow passed over the window for a moment and he heard again the sound that had woke him; it was a heavy, slow whooshing sound, like a lot of air being moved around. He looked at the window and saw the tip of a huge, brown-feathered wing stroking the air, and caught a glimpse of a bright yellow bonnet.

  Davy's eyes widened and his smile stretched into a gape of wonder. He jumped from the bed and ran to the window. He stifled a shriek of excitement as Mother Goose touched down in the parking lot below his window. She was not alone. All the nursery rhymes were cavorting around her: Wee Willie Winkie, Little Boy Blue, Little Miss Muffet, Mary Mary Quite Contrary all of them were there. Davy gasped with joy as he took it all in. When he saw Humpty Dumpty sitting on a wall in the middle of the parking lot it didn't matter that there had never been a wall there before Davy squealed with delight.

  I must be dreaming, he thought, and pinched himself on the arm. He winced and realized he was not asleep. Mother Goose and all her children were really out there!

  He started to call for his mother, but something, a feeling, an unspoken voice, kept him from doing it. She won't see us, it seemed to say. We're here only for you.

  Davy realized the voice must be that of Mother Goose. He waved to her and she lifted a beautiful, brown-dappled wing and waved back. Her long orange beak opened in a smile and her big blue eyes twinkled. Come out and play with us, she said.

  On bare feet, Davy padded out of his room, into the kitchen, and out the back door. His parents, sleeping in the room at the other end of the hall opposite the kitchen, never heard him go. They never saw him again.

  Davy stepped out onto the walk outside and giggled excitedly as Jack and Jill walked by; Jack with his head wrapped in brown paper, smelling of vinegar, and Jill, carrying a dented pail. Ole King Cole was sitting on the hood of a Chevy station wagon. He was holding a pie that chirped and seemed to float in his hands. He chuckled merrily at it as if it were tickling him. Running around the station wagon was Little Bo Peep crying for her sheep.

  Davy looked around in wonder and laughed with pure happiness. He walked into the parking lot slowly, twisting his head constantly as he tried to see everything. The fingers of his right hand were planted in his mouth and he giggled around them.

  A loud shriek made him whirl around suddenly. Little Miss Muffet was being chased down the sidewalk by a tiny spider. On the small square lot of brown grass that tried to grow between the buildings, an old-fashioned lace-up boot as big as a house was sitting. It had windows in its heel and a door on the ankle. A stovepipe stuck out from the top and puffed little clouds of white smoke. All over the apparition, children swarmed, laughing and crying, running and fight ing. Sitting on the doorstep was an old woman, head in hands, wondering aloud what she was going to do.

  Near the fire hydrant across the way, Simple Simon and the pieman were discussing the latter's wares when they were interrupted by Tom Tom the Piper's Son, who burst between them, squealing pig in arm, and ran past Davy, who was by now bouncing up and down in uncontrollable excitement.

  He ran into the parking lot, laughing wildly, and went straight to his favorite rhyme. "Hiya Humpty," he said boldly to the eggman perched high atop an eight-foot brick wall running the length and middle of the lot. Humpty Dumpty waved, but lost his balance. Rolling on his rounded edges, he fell off the wall, his eyes wide with surprise as if this had never happened to him before, his thick red lips forming a perfect 0. He hit the pavement and shattered.

  Davy clapped his hands and ran to the wall. This was just like his dream. He was going to put Humpty Dumpty back together again! He reached the mass of shells and stopped. The yolk, a massive quivering bubble of bloody yellow and white slime, oozed from the shattered remains.

  This wasn't like his dream.

  He bent over and picked up a piece of shell a little bigger than his hand. An eye, red-rimmed and malevolent, stared out at him.

  This was definitely not like his dream.

  He dropped the piece and turned away. Bloody yolk squished between his toes. It was cold and clammy and had the rank smell of egg salad gone bad.

  Suddenly Davy heard a scream and looked up. Little Miss Muffet was screaming bloody murder with good reason. The tiny spider had swelled to the size of a car. Its pincerlike mandibles opened and closed with a clicking, whining noise like mac
hinery working. They closed on Miss Muffet's head quickly as she stumbled and her skull popped like an overripe melon.

  Davy looked away from the sickening sight and saw that the shoe house was in flames. He could hear the screams of the children being roasted alive inside. The old woman was standing nearby holding a gas can and matches.

  He heard a rapacious growling. Old Mother Hubbard was being attacked by her starving dog. She was trying to crawl into the bushes near one of the buildings but the dog danced around her, lunging every few seconds to rip a chunk of flesh from her tattered bleeding body. He wolfed the meat down and immediately went back for more.

  Elsewhere Davy seemed to be able to see everything at once-Jack Be Nimble wasn't, and impaled himself on a giant candlestick. The hot wax melted into his skin and the flame set fire to his clothes until he was screaming and lurching about atop the candle like a flaming rodeo rider astride a burning bronco. In the corner of the lot, Little Jack Horner sat eating his Christmas pie, but when he stuck in his thumb, he pulled out a punctured eyeball that bled down his arm. Nearby, Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater was crushed beneath his wife's giant pumpkin prison. Trapped between an old black El Dorado and a beat-up Volvo, Little Boy Blue was being trampled to death by an enraged bull. On the sidewalk the little dog was tearing the cat and its fiddle to pieces. Peter Piper nearly tripped over them as he staggered about, a pickled pepper caught in his throat, his face turning blue. Simple Simon was strangling the pieman and Jill was battering Jack's wounded head with the bucket. At the other end of Humpty's wall, Mr. and Mrs. Sprat had turned cannibal and were going at each other with knives and forks, slicing and eating. Behind the burning shoe house, Mary Mary Quite Contrary was being strangled by monster vines from her garden.

  Davy tried to run, but his feet stuck in the inch-thick gluey yolk beneath him. A hand suddenly closed on his right ankle, then another on his left. He looked down to see Humpty Dumpty's disembodied hands clutching his ankles in a viselike grip. He reached down and tried to pull the hands away, but another piece of eggshell slid over and leaped at his face. On it was Humpty Dumpty's mouth, fierce and snarling with razor-sharp fangs gnashing inches from his skin.

  Davy's laughter and joy rapidly turned to tears and fear. He struggled against the hands holding him and cried to his mother for help. His voice barely seemed to have left his lips when it died, lost amid the bedlam of the rioting rhymes. Surely his mother would hear the tumult and come and save him, but no light came on in her bedroom window. No lights came on anywhere; it seemed the cacophony around Davy was one that only he could hear.

  Panic began to explode in him but was quelled by a reassuring sight. Mother Goose was waddling toward him. She had to still be good, Davy hoped fervently. His hopes were quickly murdered. As she came closer, Davy saw that her feathers were molting, leaving huge bare spots that festered with pus-leaking sores. Her eyes were runny, and her beak was decomposing, showing glimpses of a blackened, funguscovered tongue.

  Davy sucked in air, preparing to scream, but a hand shot out from under the feathers of Mother Goose's breast and clamped over his mouth. Another hand shot out and clamped on his arm. He felt himself being lifted off his feet as all around him the demented nursery rhymes began to fade.

  Eleanor embraced him, wrapping her arms around him as if he were a long-lost lover, and carried him to the hearse.

  CHAPTER 7

  Poor little kittens have lost their mittens.

  Davy Torrez woke in darkness, hanging in midair. He was groggy and nauseous. He had a horrible taste in his mouth and his stomach felt cramped like something tight was wrapped around it. He realized it was an arm around him, carrying him like a sack of potatoes, and remembered the old woman lying on top of him in the back of the hearse and putting a smelly cloth over his mouth. After that he could remember nothing until now.

  He felt like he was moving downward, as if the person carrying him (his dopey mind conjured an image of the old woman) was walking downstairs. Every few seconds there was a slight bump, and he jiggled in her arms. Hot sweaty air was pushed around his face with every jolt.

  He heard a door open, and cool, moist air flowed over him raising goosebumps on the flesh under his cotton peejays. There was the sound of heavy, shuffling footsteps on stone as he again felt himself moving through air, sideways this time.

  A dim light came on and Davy found himself staring at a square metal drain set into a stone floor next to two blackshod feet under a long black dress. He tried to lift his head to see more, but his muscles were stiff and he could barely move.

  Panic flooded him and he tried to scream, but couldn't; his mouth didn't want to work. He was swung around and hoisted higher as Eleanor regained her grip on him. In that instant he saw some of the room around him: stone walls one with a large arched metal door set into it; a large metal pool table; a big star within a circle painted on the floor a few feet away with an upholstered reclining chair set in the middle of it; a wooden podium near that, and a flash of iron bars.

  He heard a rusty scrape, then a tinny rattling and the long creepy squeak of old hinges. The bottom of a door made of bars came into his vision just before everything blurred. He landed on his right side like a dropped laundry sack, and banged his head on the stone floor. He realized he had been thrown in a cage as the door creaked and slammed shut behind him. This was followed by the rattling of the key in the lock.

  Davy's eyes adjusted to the poor light in the cage slowly. As they did, he saw a face, a very white, almost bluish face, glowing ghostly in the dark about three feet opposite him. There was another boy in the cage. His eyes were closed. Davy's eyes, now more accustomed to the poor light, took in the rest of the cage. It was very large, the ceiling being high above him. On the side that was in his line of vision, Davy saw blankets and a bowl and cup near the boy. In the rear was a bare porcelain toilet with a chain hanging next to it.

  Something strange about the other boy made Davy peer closer. At first glance, when he'd not been able to see clearly, he had thought that the boy, who appeared to be naked, had a blanket partially over him. As Davy looked again, he saw that he was mistaken.

  Davy felt a scream building so loud that his head might burst from the force of it if he ever let it out.

  The boy opposite him was naked and had no arms and no legs.

  They had been cut off.

  Perfectly straight suture scars showed like miniature train tracks across the end of each stump.

  Another line of train track scars ran vertically for several inches between his legs.

  A hot, prickly wave of sweaty nausea rolled over Davy's entire body, and his mind went numb with cold fear. The suppressed scream swelled. Out of the corner of his eye, Davy saw the old woman's face at the bars, looking down at the little quadriplegic with a sad smile on her face.

  "Poor little kitten has lost his mittens," she said quietly. "Too bad"

  The scream began to spill from his lips. The cold fear turned to freezing terror when she reached through the bars and prodded the little boy's pallid flesh. "Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, I think I'll let your juicy meat get nine days old," she mused softly, then looked directly at Davy. "The better for stew," she said and laughed wild, cackling laughter that came straight out of Davy's worst nightmares.

  The scream erupted from him in all its force. At that moment, Davy Torrez's five-year-old mind collapsed in terrified shock and crawled into a deep dark hole at the bottom of his brain where nursery rhymes didn't come to life, and he didn't see dead boys with their arms, legs, and peepees cut off, or hear the laughter of his nightmare witch and know that, no matter what his mother said, she was real.

  CHAPTER 8

  There was an old man ...

  Steve was up early, waking at 5:30, a full half hour before the alarm was set to go off. It had always been that way with him on important days first day of school, first day of a job; he could barely sleep the night before and woke with time to spare in the morning.
>
  He got out of bed carefully, not wanting to wake Diane, and pushed in the alarm button on the clock. He wanted to let her sleep as long as possible; sleep was becoming a rare thing for her the bigger and more uncomfortable she got. He tiptoed out of the room and down the stairs to the kitchen.

  They were pretty much settled in, though it had taken them a week to do it; the fact that they had spent Labor Day weekend at the Eameses' house for endless cookouts had something to do with it. Steve put a small pot of water to boil on the stove and spooned instant coffee into a large stoneware mug. He didn't really feel like eating, he was too nervous, but he knew if he didn't he would pay for it later when he couldn't do anything about it. He made two pieces of toast and forced them down with the coffee.

  When he was finished, he put more bread in the toaster and poured two bowls of Cheerios, placing them on the table for Jackie and Jennifer's breakfast. He went upstairs to wake them and get them ready for their first day of school also.

  By 7:45 he had showered, shaved, dressed, and managed to get the kids fed and dressed and into the Saab to be taken to school. He and Diane had decided last week, after hearing Judy Eames's frightening story, that he would take them to school the first day and she would pick them up. That way they could both become familiar with the route and put themselves at ease. It would be an easier parting, too, than just seeing them to the bus stop.