Scowler

by Daniel Kraus

  There’s no telling what you could do if you just moved your bloody bum!

  Ry laughed. He raised an arm and regarded Furrington. The brown marble eyes winked in the dawn. That couldn’t be right; Ry pressed the heel of his other hand to his forehead in consternation. This agitated the mushroom swelling of his wound, and his vision splintered into rays of color. He fought to hang on to his last thought. What was going on? Oh, yes, this stuffed animal was speaking to him—of course it was; it was his old friend Mr. Furrington.

  I’ll never give up on you, Furrington said.

  “Thank you,” Ry whispered.

  Give it a go, old chum.

  “Should I?”

  Why not? You might be surprised.

  For Furrington, he’d try. He ignored the advancing hmmmm hm hm hmmmm and tightened the muscles in the small of his back. He found himself sitting straight up, his extremities tingling with—could it be?—a kind of warmth. He smiled down at the turquoise bear. Furrington tipped his bowler, or maybe Ry did it for him. Either way, he was moved by the chubby little guy’s modesty and decided to repay him with effort. Ry took to his feet—a miracle, a miracle. There was no feeling in his toes but there remained some compliance in his ankles, and he chanced a couple shaky steps down the bank. Another miracle. His teeth ached in the evening air and that’s what told him he was—miracle of miracles!—smiling.

  I love you, said Furrington, dear friend.

  “I love you, too,” Ry gasped. Tears crystallized at the corners of his eyes. His foot landed wrong and he went scrambling sideways.

  Balance, chap, balance!

  “Sorry,” Ry said. A black oak bounced off his face, but then he was righted.

  Crackers! Watch the old bean.

  “The old bean,” Ry said. “You got it.”

  Ry gazed down at the three figures in his hands and was overwhelmed with the thrill of camaraderie. Yes, he would cavort through the timber with friends of his own choosing, and no, he didn’t care what his parents thought of his playmates or the places they chose to play. He wedged the three beneath his belt. Ry and Furrington and Jesus Christ and Scowler: best friends. He skipped and the bad landing vibrated all the way up into his jaw. In these conditions careless tomfoolery could lead to death—he recognized this—but why not die by splitting himself in half with the force of his play rather than suffer a tedious and predictable murder?

  The euphoria fueled him for five more astonishing hours. Then his feet became rocks. Then, worse, they became trees, planted so that each step was an uprooting. A cold ripped at his ears like pulled duct tape, and a fluid, maybe cranial, drained from his forehead. Furrington kept up the droll chatter but it was hard to hear over the shriek of the cold. The police, where were they? Bad question. He knew where they were. Black Glade had them, too. He strained for an audible sign, but all he heard was the humming. His father was closer than ever, a short sprint away if only the brambles would let up.

  Thou art lost, observed Jesus Christ.

  Ry stopped moving, dislodged the plastic figure from his belt, and looked at the pink face, the all-seeing dots of its eyes. It was time to admit the truth.

  “I’m going in circles,” he said.

  Do not despair, Jesus Christ responded. Remember thy teachings.

  Oh, yes, Furrington added. Capital idea. Capital!

  Though he could hear, so incredibly close, his father’s fingers ripping through frozen briar, Ry did not resume his flight. Instead he took up Furrington in the other hand and faced him toward the elastic savior.

  “Furrington, this is Jesus Christ,” he said. “Jesus Christ, this is Furrington.”

  Blessings unto thou, said Jesus Christ.

  Right, right, said Furrington. Aces.

  “Now.” Ry tried to control the trembling in his voice. “You said teachings. I don’t remember any teachings.”

  Thou dost.

  “No, I don’t.” The humming was as loud and jagged as a lawn mower. “He’s coming. Help me.”

  Thy teachers have toldest thou how. His voice was deep and soothing, each syllable placed with unhurried assurance.

  Ry opened his mouth to protest, but there was a glimmer of light in the swirling blackness of his mind. Hadn’t there, in fact, been a school unit on wilderness survival? The point of light grew and Ry could see it, his second-grade classroom. He could even see his desk, how his too-long legs struggled against the unfair perimeters. On the desktop he saw his Pink Pearl eraser, absent of any pencil stabbings; he saw his canister of paste, as yet uncrusted by sloppy handling. All of this meant that it was the first week of school—that’s how important this lesson was—and though the words “Black Glade” were never uttered, the students implicitly understood. Perhaps if Ry concentrated hard enough now he could hear just a few of the teacher’s instructions.

  “Yell three times in a row,” Ry remembered out loud. “But I can’t do that. He’ll hear.”

  What else, my child?

  Ry squeezed his eyes shut and listened some more. “Leave markings on trees so search parties can find you. But I can’t do that, either.”

  Thou art wise.

  There was something else; Jesus Christ was just waiting for him to find it. Ry pressed his two friends against his temples as he tried to block out his father’s humming.

  “Keep moving in a straight path. There’s a way. You can use the North Star.”

  Willst thou show us? Jesus Christ asked with polite deference.

  Ry nodded. Ignoring Marvin, so near now Ry could hear the ragged whistles of breath drawn between the song’s every verse, he stumbled around with his face turned upward until he found an exposed patch of sky. It had to be close to eleven o’clock, an ideal time for stargazing. The North Star was the last celestial body in the handle of the Little Dipper, but as his second-grade teacher had warned, the Little Dipper could be difficult to find. Better to try to find the Big Dipper, which pointed to the North Star with its outermost cup. Look, there it was. That was easy. Now imagine a line drawn from the North Star to the forest floor. That was north.

  Blimey, Furrington said. You’ve done it!

  Go on, my child, Jesus Christ said. Deliver us from evil.

  The humming was right there at his heels, so close that he expected the browns and grays of his peripheral vision to be slashed by red at any second. But if he could just hold to a northern trajectory instead of making mad circles, escape would be imminent, and these eight or nine straight hours of motion would feel more like one or two, he just knew it.

  With the cheering of his two friends, he nearly accomplished just such a miracle. Midnight passed, followed by four hours of the harshest conditions. He did not notice when ice began to razor his fingers. He did not notice when noncirculation turned his face to wood. He had long since stopped shivering and only dimly remembered being told in school that this was the body’s last-ditch attempt to save energy. Death, for so long counted on to be delivered by a fast, hard blow from his father, might instead come from winter’s soft, slow smothering. Either one was fine; he would not survive the next hour and knew it, but he would at least die among friends.

  When the North Star led him to a rubbish bin with a fire still burning itself out, he felt not jubilation but rather further resignation. The corroded metal barrel sat fifty yards away in a clearing, and that clearing was no doubt attached to a farm. Yet he could not approach the tantalizing folds of low flame. Shortly after Ry had stopped moving to gawk at the fire, the humming and sounds of pursuit had stopped too. Somewhere nearby, Marvin was watching the same bin and waiting for Ry to betray his location. It was possible that Ry might enjoy thirty seconds of warmth before his father descended. He dug his numb fingers into the clammy caves of his armpits and shuddered with the dry facsimiles of sobs to which he had grown accustomed.

  Warm thyself. Take of us.

  Oh, yes, agreed Furrington. Indeed!

  Ry’s eyes had contracted into ball bearings. They rolled downwa
rd to look upon his friends. They were lovely.

  “I can’t. I couldn’t.”

  Thou art welcome to my body.

  Guv’nor, you’d be bollocks for burning. I’m the one, hey?

  Ry reluctantly removed the stuffed animal from his belt and looked him over. Each of the limbs was attached with old thread that had long ago loosened. He could imagine biting down on the bear, tasting the sour plush, tearing loose the appendage like he was some kind of wild animal. But wasn’t that what he had become?

  The popping of the threads was musical against his teeth.

  Tee-hee, Furrington giggled. Oh, how it tickles!

  Ry was sobbing by the time he had removed the bear’s left leg, real liquid tears dredged up from some mystery reserve. The lump of turquoise cloth, topped with a pouf of stuffing, sat in Ry’s nerveless palm. He waited until all five of his fingers were able to close over it. This noble sacrifice could not go to waste.

  “I’m scared,” he confessed.

  Fear not. Jesus Christ’s painted eyes were a study in serenity. His kingdom come, His will be done.

  You could not call it a run. The feet were too draggy, the knees collided too frequently, the fists jounced at his sides like heavy bags. It was still faster than either father or son could have expected. In just seconds, Ry was crashing into the bin and coughing within the swirling galaxies of expelled sparks. He shook his head to scatter the smoke and plunged Furrington’s dismembered leg into the center of the fire. It did not immediately catch and Ry began shouting because, what the hell, Marvin could see him. He shouted “Help!” over and over until he saw the edges of the stuffing begin to brown. He shot away with the leg, cradling the new fire against his chest and knowing that it would not burn out because Jesus Christ was saying so. Marvin’s panting rose up from behind, then softened as the man paused at the garbage bin, gasping and unsteady. Ry did not squander his lead. The black of the forest blotted out the sapphire of the sky.

  He carried fire. His hand became hot and he rubbed that warmth over his face, then any other patch of exposed skin, barely able to suppress the laughter. He had not even considered what the fire would do for his sight, but the effect was glorious. The dim glow of the makeshift lantern made every step a sure one and every route foolproof, and though Ry’s father could also follow the torchlight, he could not enjoy the full benefits of its illumination. Marvin, his overtaking of Ry inevitable just moments ago, slipped far, far, away, until his tantrum thrashing was indistinguishable from the soft crackle of Furrington’s fur.

  The stuffing incinerated quickly but the fabric itself smoldered for so long it was downright magical. When it was close to gone, Ry gathered a bouquet of dry weeds, and soon these were lit too. With a tingle of inspiration he touched the flame to other dead weeds and watched them alight. Soon the woods behind him twinkled with loci of light, any one of which, to Marvin’s eyes, could be Ry. He lifted his nose to the air and smelled the grease of a country breakfast, heard the lowing of wakened cows. Like any good farm boy, he recognized dawn when he saw it. There was no stopping him now.

  A hole grabbed his foot and twisted. His body wrenched with such violence that all breath was expelled prior to impact with the ground. Ry sputtered, his face burning with snow and his feet—where were his feet? He flopped over and found one foot pointing upward; the other throbbed from its hiding place inside a snow drift. Ry sat up and cords of pain fastened themselves around his leg. He scooped at the snow until he saw his ankle snaking into a narrow tunnel left by some burrowing creature. When he tried to withdraw it he heard a gritty crackle. He leaned forward, lifted his pant leg, pushed down his sock, and saw a hood of flesh that had popped open where leg met foot. Ry writhed. He could feel the chill of wind directly onto bone.

  Gurgling frantic pleas, Ry clawed the dirt around the hole until he could slide free the foot. The appendage sounded like a bag of marbles when placed upon the snow. Ry lay back down, held it in for a minute, and then screamed. It seemed to alleviate the pain so he did it some more, screeching with such force that he tasted blood. He heard the sputter of a distant tractor motor. They would hear him if he just kept screaming. He blared like a siren and pounded the hard earth with his fists.

  Pray calm thyself—

  Shhh, friend. Oh, friend, shhh—

  “No! No! No!” His crazed repetitions drowned out the smaller voices and their sensible suggestions, as well as the rustle of his father’s advance. Ry knew he should not be upset. Sarah was safe; his mother was safe too. That was the whole point of everything. Yet the wicked unfairness of sixteen hours spent fighting for life in arctic temperatures consumed him with childish outrage. He was angry with God, angry with himself, angry at the failures of Furrington and Jesus Christ to deliver him safely home.

  He was just about to faint, he could feel it, when he heard a noise coming from the center of his skull. It sounded like a rat trying to escape: high-pitched snuffles, agitated squeaks, the acute ticking of claws across a paneled floor. It was a breathless, hysterical sound. Ry’s heart raced to keep up with it.

  St—d—p-p-p—sk’t, sk’t, sk’t.

  The torture would never end! Ry stopped screaming and into that void of sound leapt Furrington and Jesus Christ.

  Good golly, don’t listen to him—

  Thou beware thy third companion—

  It’s no bloody good to do what he—

  Thee shall fall at the hands of—

  Sk—pk, pk, pk—pk, shuf, pk, shuf, pk-pk-pk, up, up, up.

  Ry pressed his hands over his ears and sobbed. Then he removed Scowler from his belt. Polyps inside of its mealy body shifted around the steel skeleton like rearranging organs. The wounds of its eyes gave up nothing, but the shell teeth of its shark’s mouth gleamed—the only things sharp and clean within the tiny, yellow, curdled body.

  “What do you want?” Ry whispered.

  Tk, tk, tk.

  “Say it.”

  Tk, tk, shg. Tk-up.

  “No. No, I don’t want to.”

  Pk, pk, pk, pk, shg, shg, tk’up.

  “Why?” Ry sobbed. “Do I have to?”

  Tk!

  A nearby tree helped. Ry lifted his wasted body with exquisite slowness until he was balanced. His snapped left foot hung limp as a rabbit carcass. His vision rocked. First he saw only the shimmies of victimized plants, but then he saw the Louisville Slugger darting like a cardinal setting off from tree limb to tree limb. Not once during his flight had Ry dared to look back but he was doing it now, and there was Marvin Burke, right on schedule, bashing a path through Black Glade as if it were no more than one of his cornfields.

  Lk, lk’shup. Lk, lk’shup. Tk, tk, shup. Gg!

  Marvin emerged from a line of bitternuts and stopped when he saw his son standing not fifty feet away. Never had the great farmer looked worse. His pants were torn and his stocking hat had unraveled into fuzzy strands that swayed like antennae. His face was blue and his eyes were red and sunken. Most shocking of all was his mustache, no longer so powerful when a day’s growth of beard eased it into the rest of his face. The worst of it, though, was that he had become somehow inhuman; his flesh was scored into grotesque dinosauric segments and quaked with the pulse of ancient blood. Ry realized that this was how Scowler saw Marvin Burke—as a piteous and revolting monster—and though Ry knew it was a false vision, he found himself unable to resist it. A monster is something to be stopped, no question about it.

  Marvin pushed back glasses that were gray with grime and straightened his exhausted posture.

  “Dad,” Ry said.

  “You,” the monster replied.

  Frostbitten fingers choked up on the bat—Ry remembered that being his father’s sole piece of swinging advice. A second hand joined the first and throttled the handle, a proper two-handed grip. Marvin took a deep breath and exhaled so that his untrimmed mustache billowed. Damp leaves smacked as he began advancing.

  Wk-it-tk-it, sk-sk-sk-sk—

  Warm dro
plets oozed from Scowler’s skin.

  Marvin charged, faster now, his feet booting rocks and sundering white brambles. He did not look triumphant; this was merely how you made a success of yourself. You set a goal and you stuck to it. It was an example for Ry to learn from, the final example.

  Pk—d, pk—d, pk-pk-pk-pk, st-st-st-st, b-b-b-b-b—

  Thirty feet away, twenty feet, fifteen, ten—and Ry struck dumb by the wild specificity of the Marvin-monster, so flecked and flawed, so freakishly tall compared to the tiny friends who had repeatedly saved Ry’s life. Snot fluttered from Marvin’s nose as he heaved a great breath and drew back the bat so that it angled away like a devil’s wing.

  Tk, tk, tk, tk, tk, tk, tk, tk, tk, tk, tk, tk, tk, tk, tk, tk—

  Ry opened his arms to embrace his father.

  Three feet away, Marvin was thrown off by his son’s invitation. The red bat wavered. Ry smiled, his face gooey with liquid, and moved in for the hug that Marvin had always denied. Ry’s busted left foot forced him to hop, and the abrupt closing of distance made Marvin—the detestable monster—flinch. Scowler rode in Ry’s right hand, pleased and eyeless.

  “Now?” Ry recognized his own whisper as despicably defeated.

  TK!

  Something about Marvin’s glassy-eyed horror suggested that he saw in that final instant the truth of Scowler, discovering not a harmless homemade trifle but a troll starving for blood. The whetted edge of the doll’s exposed metal pipe sunk into Marvin’s neck. It was what Ry had failed to do with the sewing shears and, once done, it sickened him more than he could have imagined. Everything supernatural about Marvin instantly vanished. He tucked in his quivering, stubbled chin to get a look at the protruding figure. A few seconds passed. Marvin twitched and reddened. Then Scowler’s piping took over and blood began to dribble from its other leg and both arms. Marvin’s chest hitched and the movement increased the flow. Now the piping ran like faucets and, worst of all, Scowler’s mouth began to brim.

  Marvin lifted a hand but seemed unable to bring himself to touch the rotten thing.

  Ry moved his lips in silent apology.

  Every spurt of dark syrup seemed to infuse Scowler’s husk with vivid color. Blood streaked through the fine white teeth. Marvin’s knee buckled, and the bat barely made a sound as it slipped away. He began to sway and Ry reached out and took hold of Scowler. The steel leg dislodged with a spray of crimson, and Ry fought for balance upon his single good leg. Marvin pressed a hand over his bubbling neck.