Scowler

by Daniel Kraus

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know!”

  He inhaled sharply through flared nostrils. Little bitch, he thought.

  He’d never thought such a thing of his sister.

  Part of him, a new part, rather liked it.

  “Was it his own blood?” He enunciated the words with precision.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “His hair,” Sarah said. “His hair was gone.”

  Ry touched his pate. “Like mine?”

  “No,” she said. “It was gone. The whole top of his head.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” Ry said, but it was a lie. He palmed his skull and felt how the veins pulsed with their freights of blood. The stuff would gush, he figured, if your weapon was more serious than a five-dollar razor.

  “It was an accident,” he heard himself say. “He fell. Or jumped to hide from a truck. There’s concrete in those culverts.”

  Sarah was shaking her head miserably.

  “There was skin,” she sobbed, “in the corn.”

  Ry punched the wall; Sarah’s flinch made him punch it again. Why did she find it appropriate to poison others with her personal nightmares? Ry realized that his father had been right about one thing: Sometimes the man of the house needed to curtail female misbehavior. He moved forward to do just that when a chair in the kitchen screeched back as someone stood.

  Sarah forgot her injuries and traumas—See, Ry thought, the faker!—and pawed at his shirt, seeking protection. Ry held her in check and grinned at her hysteria. When she noticed, her mouth fell open in horror. Ry had the strongest hunch of his life; he leaned in and found exactly what he suspected.

  A tendril grew from the red recess of her empty tooth socket. It was delicate and green and topped with a waxen bulb. Sarah jerked away but he snatched her jaw with his hand and dug in a thumb to prevent her mouth from closing. She yelped and twisted. He liked the feel of her bones trembling beneath his fingers. He peered more closely and saw the tendril sway with the intelligent caution of an octopus tentacle. Sarah appeared oblivious to its existence, which made perfect sense, because when is a monster aware of its own monstrosity? Ry bet that if he pulled down her bottom lip he would find gums squirming with subcutaneous invaders.

  “Ry,” she whimpered.

  In swept Furrington and Jesus Christ. Their cascade of disapproving whispers tried to remind him of other people of flesh and blood that he’d mistaken for demons. Marvin Burke, emerging from the throat of Black Glade as a prehistoric beast? Linda Colson, transformed into a rippling blob? Ry admitted that it was tough to be totally certain. The safe thing to do, he figured, just to be sure, was reach into Sarah’s mouth, grab the tendril, and pull, and, if he was lucky, reel it from her jaw, yard after yard, like the tapeworm it was. But that outcome would take luck, and his father had always advocated making your own luck with swift, definitive action. What Ry needed was to simply close the tooth hole. What he needed was a needle and thread.

  He aimed his free hand at her teeth.

  “Easy, chap!” Furrington said.

  “Shut up,” Ry muttered.

  Sarah ducked, tossed her shoulders, and tried to pull away. Ry clamped his hand harder around her jaw. His thumbnail sunk into her lip. He could see the risen half-moon of blood.

  “All thy beasts are reflections!” Jesus Christ cried. “Know ye this!”

  “Shut up, shut up!” Ry shouted.

  In the kitchen a dish clattered down, followed by the squeak of a shoe turning on linoleum. These tangible sounds broke his concentration for a moment. That was all Furrington and Jesus Christ needed to cut through his delirium with soothing overtures of understanding and love. In a quick but blinding flash, Ry recognized his sister’s injuries, exhaustion, and terror. These things comprised a handy catalogue of a brother’s failure; they also represented the best opportunity for redemption. He withdrew his hand from her jaw. She needed to get away from him, right now, before he could change his mind.

  “The attic,” he gasped.

  “Yes, hidest thou in thine attic!”

  “Hurry, lassie, hurry!”

  Even as she was stumbling away and rubbing the fingernail indents from her cheek, relief washed over her face: Her brother, horridly as he was behaving, had not ordered her back into a night haunted by dead repairmen and massacred convicts. She bolted. Ry had a last-second impulse to reach out, snare that sparrow wrist, and call out to his father: I’ve got her!

  But she was just a flutter of white nightgown trailing into the dining room. Ry closed his eyes and counted off one Mississippi, two Mississippi. That was all it took. Footsteps pounded their way to his bedroom, and he stepped back so as not to be struck by a fist or gun. The swinging of the door blew a gust of air into his eyes. He squinted, wondering if he would be able to lie to his father’s face. But the eyes that locked onto his own did not belong to Marvin.

  19 HRS., 48 MINS. AFTER IMPACT

  Jo Beth pushed him with her hand and hissed.

  “Where is she?”

  The prepared lie came out anyway: “Who?”

  Her glare of callous impatience was a brand-new one.

  “I know my own daughter when I hear her.”

  He tried to look over her shoulder. “Is he … Did he—”

  “Did he hear her? I don’t think so. He’s out there on the porch steps, calling for the dog.”

  She widened her eyes like Ry was stupid. He cocked his head and sure enough heard a distant cry from the backyard, the patriarch trying to bring in line the one family member still delinquent: Snig! Snig! Here, ol’ Sniggety boy!

  Jo Beth shook Ry by his shirt.

  “Where is she?”

  “Upstairs. Don’t worry—”

  She leaned closer, spraying spittle.

  “My God. How could you let her inside?”

  “What? She came back. She—”

  “She does what you say, Ry. You could’ve told her to hide out in the field, one of the barns, anywhere. She’d be safer in Black Glade.”

  Ry felt a stab of insult. The woman knew not of which she spoke.

  “Where are the police?” She paced a tight circle. “Where the hell are the police?”

  “Is he coming back inside?” Ry asked.

  “Yes, any second, and now your sister’s trapped upstairs.”

  “Mom—”

  “It’s that piece of rock you broke off.” She stepped over to the door, threw a worried glance at the kitchen from which Marvin would emerge. “He can’t stop fooling with it. He’s obsessed. Like he used to get at harvest time. He keeps … touching it. He even started—I mean, we were eating and he used the point like you would a toothpick. He claims it’s not affecting him, but how can that be? I haven’t even touched it and my head hurts so bad it’s going to explode.”

  She paused again to make sure the calls for Sniggety were ongoing.

  “Now listen to me,” she said. “This obsession? It gives us opportunities. We need to take them. I had him there in the kitchen with me for a half hour. A half hour, Ry. I distracted him in a million different ways and you were in here with a window. Ry. Wake up. That’s the kind of opportunity we cannot pass up again.”

  “Mom—”

  The complaint was interrupted by a howl in the night—Sniggety. No, it was Marvin. They sounded so similar.

  Jo Beth snapped her fingers in Ry’s face.

  “Hey. Hey. Look at me. He keeps fooling with that piece of rock, there’s going to be more chances, and soon. I’ve gotten close to the shotgun four or five times. This is what I’m talking about. I spilled water on the gun while we were eating, pretended I was clumsy. I thought maybe if the shells got wet—well, who knows? And aspirin. I crushed an entire bottle’s worth of aspirin while I was making supper and wasn’t able to get it into a glass without him seeing but it’s right there on the count
er, right by the sugar bowl so he’d think it was spilled sugar if he saw it, and Ry, if we get the chance we have to get him to drink that stuff down.”

  “But,” Ry said, “he said he doesn’t have a headache.”

  Jo Beth’s lips parted in astonishment. “Ry, I’m begging you: Focus. It’s very simple. He ingests that much aspirin, he’ll bleed like crazy when we cut him.”

  Through the window they heard Marvin’s victorious mutter, the slap of his free hand upon canine flank, and then an odd clanking noise that took Ry a moment to place. It was the old dog chain, which had not seen use in over fifteen years. There was no key to the open padlock, but the idea nevertheless had an appeal. This was how a man asserted control over his home: locks and chains. The cocksure swagger Ry had felt during his shaving began to return. By now Marvin had discovered the uselessness of the padlock and would be, right this moment, on his way back indoors. That did not leave Ry much time to show his dad what he could do.

  Jo Beth sped up her instruction. “Don’t trigger him to do anything. Indecision, discussion, that’s what we want. Every minute that goes by is a minute closer to the police showing up. And don’t talk about Sarah. Don’t even mention her name.”

  Her chin crumpled. Ry inspected it for monstrous parts.

  “You’re her brother,” Jo Beth said. “Her big brother. I need you to think what you’re doing.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m trying.”

  “Try harder,” she said. “This is not a game.”

  The back porch door squalled and there was a final shouted command for Sniggety to stay before Marvin’s footsteps pounded into the kitchen and paused upon acknowledgment of his wife’s absence. Then they picked up again, fast. Game—Jo Beth had used the word to compare her son to his worthless toys, hadn’t she? Well, Ry would show her a game.

  He stepped up to his mother and slapped her in the face.

  There were three seconds of ice-water shock. Even Furrington and Jesus Christ were speechless as the red imprint of a palm materialized on Jo Beth’s cheek. Ry flushed with pride at his handiwork; he had confidence that both of his parents would recognize their son’s behavior as that of a fully realized man. He waited for his mother to touch the welt with the same wonder he’d seen junior high girls pet their first hickeys.

  Instead she struck him. Ry’s head rocketed to his shoulder and burst with pain. He cradled his cheek with a hand, imagining loosened teeth, wondering if it was possible that a thatch of tendrils might start pushing out of his mouth. Maybe the seeds of monstrosity were sowed in his body, not his mother’s and sister’s, and that zit on the side of his nose was suppurating with mutant slugs. He sniveled at his mother through watery eyes.

  Eyes blazing, Jo Beth flung back her arm for a second blow. But Marvin was there to catch her elbow at its highest point. Jo Beth did not gasp or turn; rather, she strained harder, surging toward the ingrate boy, and when she realized that her right arm was going nowhere she lashed out with the less-experienced but just as motivated left, landing a series of fumbling smacks even more demeaning.

  Ry scurried out of range and looked to his father for the familiar frown of disappointment. Instead he found a man emblazoned with energy. Gray residue from the splinter of meteorite hid like damp ash under his fingernails. His mustache looked as if it had been dipped in gray paint. When he grinned Ry had to avert his eyes—the front teeth were like mirrors, plated with shavings. The shard itself was clamped by his left hand so that it rested alongside the barrel of the shotgun like a second magazine. He wet his lips with a molten tongue.

  “Whoa, Nelly,” he said.

  Marvin seemed invigorated by the freshness of physical struggle. Ry straightened. Possibly he had not performed poorly after all. Now all he had to do was get rid of these embarrassing, unwanted toys before his dad spotted them. Ry was not like these playthings, not anymore, and that was something they needed to accept.

  He hissed at them from the side of his mouth.

  “Go away.”

  “Away?” Furrington blustered. “Oh, rubbish!”

  “I don’t want you here!”

  “That’s grown-up folderol, is what that is.”

  “Enough!” Ry’s volume was growing. “No more time for playing!”

  “Each man lives,” Jesus Christ intoned, “to experience joy.”

  Ry could bear this foolishness no longer.

  “Don’t tell me what to think! Don’t you dare! A what? A giant stuffed animal? A Jesus the size of a basketball hoop? You’re going to tell me what to think or what I’m supposed to do with my life? Are you serious?”

  Gradually he became aware that his parents had gone motionless.

  A tree limb tapped gently on the side of the house, the only sound.

  “Ry.” Jo Beth controlled her tone. “I’m … let’s … how about we all go have some tea? I can make tea.”

  “All of us?” Ry demanded. “The whole family?”

  She looked hesitant.

  “Your father and you and me,” she said carefully.

  Ry waved an arm at Furrington and Jesus Christ.

  “Not them, though. Not the liars.”

  Jo Beth moved her head in an uncertain pattern.

  “No,” she said. “Not them.”

  “And Sarah?” Her verboten name tasted as good as cigarettes.

  “Tea,” Jo Beth said. “Let’s go make some.”

  “Sarah,” Marvin echoed. “What about her?”

  “Let’s go,” Jo Beth said. “Let’s all go now for tea.”

  Marvin watched his son with interest, and Ry blushed.

  “You saw her,” Marvin surmised. “Where?”

  “I …”

  “Ry!” Jo Beth barked. “Stop this! Please stop this!”

  “Mum’s the word, mate,” Furrington hissed.

  “Stop talking to me!” Ry shouted. “Stop telling me what to do!”

  “Thou findest conflict where there is peace,” Jesus Christ said.

  Marvin took a step closer to his son and asked again. “Where?”

  Ry looked from his father to his mother. Was he supposed to tell or not?

  “Calm thyself,” Jesus Christ said. “Never shall they suspect the attic.”

  Ry gasped and flapped a finger at Jesus Christ.

  “You said it! Attic! You said attic!”

  “Ry! Please shut up! We’ll drink tea! Now! Please!”

  “The attic,” Marvin mused. “I had forgotten about the attic.”

  Jo Beth threw herself at Ry and rained punches. He folded himself onto his bed, curled inward to absorb the impacts, and told himself that the blows were nothing but the courteous knuckle bumps of a table full of gentle people passing around teacups on saucers. It was ever so pleasant; he could taste the slice of lemon, feel the dribble of tea on his chin, hear the polite chuckles at his harmless foible.

  It was only when Marvin peeled Jo Beth away from his son that Ry’s humiliation blossomed anew under the helpless, ineffectual, impotent gazes of his so-called friends.

  His words made furious splatters.

  “Go away! I hate you! I never want to see you again!”

  Beloved Mr. Furrington blanched as if all color were being squeezed from his fur in tight fingerfuls. Noble Jesus Christ stiffened as if his rubber had hardened to a substance that would shatter if dropped. They were once again murdered and yet managed to sorrowfully bend their strange corpses into the room’s narrowest realms of shadow. That was not enough for Ry. Though his hands were busy protecting his ears from the final scraps of Jo Beth’s onslaught, they itched for matches and kerosene. If he could, he would do as his mother had done years ago and burn these monsters to ash.

  20 HRS., 35 MINS. AFTER IMPACT

  They went upward but it felt like a descent. The roomy dining room and high-ceilinged stairwell gave way to the cramped hallway and tomb-sized anteroom outside Sarah’s and Jo Beth’s bedrooms. Ry pulled the attic door down from the ceiling and unfo
lded the ladder, and the three of them took a minute to stare into the mausoleum darkness. No one wanted to be first. But Ry knew that his father was monitoring his progress, so up he went.

  Moonlight glowed through the pulled shade of a window at the far end of the room. Otherwise it was pitch-black. Ry swatted for the first light cord and his fingers brushed through Sarah’s hair. His heart stopped and then he realized it was only a cobweb. Jo Beth’s head poked through the opening near his feet and Ry offered her a paltry smile. She refused to look at him. She ascended at the urging of the shotgun; Ry leaned and saw Marvin bringing up the rear. Ry steadied himself, waved his arm around, found the flyspecked plastic at the end of the light string, and pulled it.

  The mechanism clicked and the bulb winked awake. Ry shaded his eyes. He had not been up here since before Jo Beth had begun packing for their exodus, and he had imagined it as partly cleared. However, the room was exactly as he had remembered: a claustrophobic tunnel between two walls of boxes that rose like the steps of Mayan temples. Sarah could be anywhere. There were recesses dark enough to contain hideaways—certainly secrets—and crests topped with pieces of junk perched like gargoyles. Ry inched forward to give his mother room and the floor squealed in agony.

  The butt of the gun thunked against the floor as Marvin completed his entrance. He held the Winchester in one hand, the dagger of meteorite in the other. His excitement was betrayed by how both items shook.

  “Is there another hmmmm?”

  It was Ry’s job as son to know this shorthand. He frowned.

  Jo Beth offered a monotone interpretation. “Is there another light, he asked.”

  “Hm hm see.”

  “He can’t see,” Jo Beth said.

  Ry pointed to the far window.

  “Well, hmmmm,” Marvin said. “Hm hm hmmmm.”

  “Go turn it on, he said.”

  Ry addressed the passageway. The room was fifteen feet long at most. Sarah had to be within touching distance, taunting them with her silence. Well, he would flush her out. Reluctant to feel a rat throe beneath one of his landing feet, he moved by sliding his shoes. The floor hissed like it was salted.