The Grimscribe's Puppets

by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

  Bleak stuff, true, but it offered something for the hero and a ragtag band of misfits to fight against, and in finally defeating it, open the door to a better world that, mercifully, nobody expected him to describe. 7_______ seldom gave him much to work with, in the way of endings.

  And then came the day when 7________ refused to cooperate. After much coaxing from his therapist for detail about the puppeteers, 7_______ had finally exploded, “What kind of hideous mask do I need to conjure up for you and your dream-stealing friend, to rationalize the sickness I felt, at what I saw? It wasn’t a vision of Hell or the outer spheres that cracked me. It was this place, this species, these sick, sad, hollow cells of a broken, self-murdering monstrosity that each believe they’re seven billion demigods. We are what’s wrong with the universe. If only there was a god out there to crush us before we remake the whole world in our own excrement, then maybe there’d be something left for the monsters who’ll come after us. That’s what I’m most afraid of. This world is the horror story too terrible to tell, and any attempt to modify it for public consumption would make it into a joke or a fantasy.”

  The public devoured Victim Eyes and its author with gusto. He soon found success a hundred times the burden that obscurity had ever been, and yet he doggedly persisted in his harvest of 7_______’s nightmares. Though he had become an avatar of the otherworldly for an adoring, outraged public, he still could not invent an interesting anecdote or a plausible character without recourse to the tapes.

  As movies and TV adaptations elevated him to an iconic status that extended out to those incapable of reading, he insulated himself from all media, and so it was not entirely unbelievable that he did not hear of the stories in the news, or the connection which the media quickly drew to his work.

  His agent and manager weren’t going to be the first to bring it up. It wasn’t until his cousin tried to cut him off that he was forced to confront the awful truth.

  “You don’t know? Look.”

  The story was about a church in a small Southern town where a girl had perished as a result of massive internal bleeding in the midst of a fervent church service. The article was maddeningly short on details, but police were investigating the source of a “foreign object” which hospital officials said an X-ray disclosed. The church was under investigation pending an autopsy, but had retained a lawyer to recover the “object”, which they claimed had powerful religious significance.

  O____ had a good idea what the object was. “How did this happen?”

  “It didn’t happen until you wrote it.”

  O____ got a beer from his cousin’s fridge. Most of it spurted out as foam when he cracked it open. “Goddamit, it was just a story…”

  “It was his story. You stole it.”

  “So… what? It came true? Stranger things have happened. Life imitating art is the oldest cliché in the book.”

  “It wasn’t the only one, man.”

  He showed O_____ a pile of clippings. Strings of random public suicides was the most recurring theme, the patterns of self-consuming carnage streaking through communities like flu bugs. “D’you have anything stronger than beer?”

  “You didn’t know? How could you not know?”

  “I don’t look at anything unless my assistants vet it first. I can’t go out there anymore... You don’t know what my fans are like.” He swilled his drink without tasting it or caring what it was, leaning into his helpless rage. “I mean, what kind of people need these contrived, bullshit nightmares just to give meaning to their lives? How empty do you have to be––”

  O_____ noticed how his cousin was looking at him and asked, “How long have I been in therapy, here?”

  His cousin didn’t laugh. “Nobody’s holding you responsible for any of this. If anything, it’s only added to your mystique. But I can’t do it anymore.”

  For a moment, O_____ felt sickening relief, but a moment later, he wasn’t set free, he was falling. “You can’t just cut me off––”

  “I didn’t. He did. He’s stopped coming in. Cancelled all his appointments.”

  “Do you think he knows?”

  “He doesn’t watch TV or read the paper, but I’ve always suspected that he was playing with us––”

  “Where does he live? I’ve got to meet him.”

  “You’ve got to stop writing these books! Somehow, you’re both making this happen––”

  “Or we’re revealing it before it happens.” O_____ killed his drink. “No, even I don’t believe that.”

  “I can’t tell you where he lives. It would––”

  “It would out us both, I get that. But he always goes––”

  “To the movies.”

  ~*~

  The stores were all closed on Christmas day, but the movies stayed open. Without the cinema, with its multiplexed portals to scripted, digitally perfected dream worlds, the suicide rate on Christmas Day would go through the roof. O_____ waited in his car across the street from the rundown multiplex for ninety minutes. When the old man got off the bus and shuffled to the box office, O_____ instantly knew it was 7_______.

  The patient bought a ticket for a holiday family film, a faux-edgy PG-13 puff piece about families, not for them. Dysfunctional as they had to be these days, the family looked nice enough in the poster, their problems zanily amusing and safe surrogate company for those with no families at all. Not like the morbid orgies of negativity that he’d vomited into the communal consciousness…

  O_____ took a seat in the row behind 7_______ and watched him as the lights went dim. Three other people wandered into the theater. Two were employees who immediately lit up a joint and started making out. The third fell asleep during the trailers. His snore was a bandsaw cutting blubber.

  7_______ covered his face in his hands through the credits and the first scene. They were having a lively holiday dinner, lavishly catered fare sizzling under sparks of zippy sarcasm. O_____ had almost forgotten why he’d come when, with a pitiful wail, 7_______ hurtled out of his seat and rushed the screen, bounced off the silverized nylon and fell to his knees before it, pleading and weeping.

  O_____ got up and intercepted the man before he could get up and try it again. “Not as easy to get out of here as it was in Roman times, eh, old timer?”

  “Don’t touch me! I won’t have it…” The old man shook him off and crawled to a seat in the front row, pointedly turning a stooped, palsied shoulder to him. “Why do you, why do you do it…?”

  “I care. I’m not a bastard. I want to make art…”

  “You’re a thief, and worse. You all are.” O_____ shivered under the patient’s flinty stare. The movie’s light reflected off his cloudy, sightless eyes. His cousin never told him 7_______ was blind. O_____ only listened to the nightmares, wondering why he didn’t end it all. But in the nightmares, 7_______ could see.

  Nobody told them to shut up. “I thought we should talk…”

  “It’s too late for talk. You know, religions were invented to explain God to the world, to help humankind accept the awful things, the evil and ugly things that tell them God must hate them, or else He is insane. But what of all the things that God didn’t put into the world? All the things too terrible to contemplate that crowd His mind and trouble His sleep? What use in telling them, even in the sugared versions you sold the public? You didn’t make them grateful. You only made the reality of evil seem unbelievable…”

  O_____ had rehearsed praising and charming this man, intimidating him and having him silenced. (Was he really that successful? Yes, he believed he was.) But now, in this smoky dream den, he had lost the meaning of words, let alone their power to persuade.

  The screen went black, and then it got darker. Pinpoints of violet light swarmed and smoldered as his eyes struggled and failed to show him what he saw beyond the screen, which had become a window into a perfect void.

  “You have no idea what it means to be God. Every living thing creates. Until you are moved by horror to drown, burn and c
rush your own creations, you have nothing in common with God.”

  “You’re no more a god than I––”

  The old man laughed, a sickly laugh that somehow made him stronger and sucked the heat out of the theater. “But I am. I’ve walked among you for as long as I could stand it, but now I’m going back.” He cast his blind longing eyes to the utterly empty screen. “Back to Heaven.”

  O_____ could not argue any more, but he reached out to hug or hold the old man, to throttle him with questions. “Why do you hate us so?”

  The old man turned and faltered against O_____. “Because you created me!” Shoving O_____ back into his seat, 7_______ turned and hobbled into the screen. For just a moment after he passed through, O_____ saw his true form. His true face.

  He had so much to repent of. So much evil to undo…

  He started with his eyes.

  ~*~

  Stop it! For the love of God, let me out!

  Settle down, please, these restraints are for your own protection. You have to go all the way through it to find your true self.

  But don’t you see? Don’t you understand, even now? He’s all of us. He’s using you to tear me apart to churn out His sick fantasies. He’s doing it now! I’ll hold my breath. I’ll just hold my breath and...

  You can’t––you’ve got to wake up. Mr. Furst? Mr. Glaublich? Mr. O_____? Come back… you have to finish it…

  Pieces of Blackness

  By Michael Kelly

  He watched the night sky. It was black and alien, churning darkly, expanding, living and growing, like the pain that coursed through him. He watched and waited. It was a dark sky, but he could see another darkness, pieces of tainted blackness, tumours, coiling, forming a greater blackness. One day, he knew, it would open up, all of it; the sky, him, and the entire world.

  Every time he watched the sky, he was reminded of the boy.

  Peter never told anyone about the boy. He kept it all inside of him, a cancerous darkness, pieces of a blacker blackness, living and growing. He could taste it, a rancid foulness, a murky mass twisting inside him, expanding and solidifying, like black stones tumbling and pulverising his insides, a dark pain that doubled him over and made Peter vomit gobs of brown mucous.

  But Peter never told anyone about the pain, or the pieces of blackness living inside of him.

  ~*~

  “Come back. Please, come back.”

  ~*~

  “Peter. Peter? Wake up.”

  Peter moaned, rolled over. He was dreaming. It wasn’t one of his dark nightmares. This was a proper sex dream: soft lips kissing, long booted legs wrapped around him, limbs twining, groping, gloved hands stroking.

  Those hands were rough now, shoving, shaking.

  “Peter! Wake up!”

  He groaned, pushed the dream away and sat up, blinking. Katy was staring at him, one hand clutching his arm. “You okay?” she asked.

  An erection pushed against his boxers. Guilt niggled at him. He rubbed sleep from his eyes. “Yeah, sure, I’m fine. What time is it?” He glanced at the digital clock. 3:12.

  “It’s Timothy,” Katy said.

  Peter was suddenly wide-awake. “What,” he said. “What is it?”

  “I heard something,” she said.

  Timothy was their son. He was six years old. Lately, he’d taken to sleepwalking. They’d woken one night to strange sounds from outside, to find Timothy in their barn, chuckling madly. The sight of their son in Winnie-the-Pooh pyjamas standing in the old, empty barn, laughing, had sent them reeling. It’d sent a dark spasm through Peter. The barn, he’d thought, not the fucking barn.

  The adoption agency had explained that it takes quite an adjustment for young children to go from foster care to an adoptive family. Their family doctor surmised it was just a formative stage that Timothy would soon outgrow.

  But he didn’t. Two or three times each week they’d find Timothy in the bathroom or kitchen or garage, staring blank-eyed, face strained red, mouth agape in a grin of terror, guttural laughter coming from him. It’d take a while, but they’d comfort and soothe him with quiet whispers and soft touches until he’d seemingly snap out of it, or “wake-up,” then go back to bed as if nothing happened.

  As if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  They put safety latches high up on the main doors, to prevent Timothy from getting out of the house. Peter had also wanted to lock Timothy’s bedroom door, but Katy would have none of it. “He’s not a fucking animal, Peter, a pet. He’s a scared little boy. My little boy.” It seemed to Peter that when it came to Timothy, he didn’t have much say.

  They’d compromised and put a baby monitor in his room, so they’d hear Timothy if he stirred. Peter hated it. Each night it hissed and crackled black static. He listened now, but could only hear that dread crackle like a television channel that’s gone off air.

  “I don’t hear him,” Peter said.

  “I did,” Katy said, sharp, and even in the near dark Peter could see her glower.

  Peter stood, penis still half-erect, like something half-alive or half-dead. “I’ll check on him,” he said. He put on his robe and padded to the door.

  The hallway was dark. Timothy’s room was at the end of the hallway, as was the light switch. He took a step but a sound stopped him dead. It had sounded like a squeal, the kind of noise a mouse might make if you stomped on it. Then another sound, like a sigh, only breathier. Then that strange squeal again and he recognized it for what it was—a child’s laughter, a strangled chuckle—and it sent a shiver through him.

  “Timothy?” he called out. “Tim?”

  In the darkness at the end of the hallway he sensed movement.

  A step forward. “Tim?”

  Then a shadow, a piece of blackness, stirred, seemed to peel away from the far wall, and slipped into Timothy’s room.

  Peter raced down the hall. He flailed at the wall, trying to find the damn switch, but couldn’t. He rushed into Timothy’s room, found his switch and flipped it on. The sudden light hurt his eyes and made him squint. Timothy was sitting in his bed, cross-legged, body rigid, rocking, and smiling—no, Peter thought—grinning, as if a peculiar madness had taken hold. The same lunatic madness and dread that Peter now felt.

  But as Peter moved toward the bed, Timothy seemed to sense his presence and looked toward him. Timothy blinked. His body relaxed. Then he lay down and closed his eyes, face calm, chest rising and falling in a natural rhythm.

  Peter moved to the bed, stood staring at Timothy, his son. Son. He wondered, on nights like this, if he would ever truly think of the boy as his son. Wondered if he could be a father.

  When Peter turned there was a shadow in the doorway, Katy. There was something a bit unnatural about her stance. She appeared to droop, sag, as if unseen hands or strings were holding her up.

  Peter tried a smile. “It’s okay,” he said. “Everything is fine.” And even as he said it, he didn’t believe it.

  Katy turned out the light, and then moved out of the doorway. When Peter followed and made it back to their bed, Katy had already seemingly fallen asleep. He had the sense that he’d done something. Or hadn’t done something, as the case might be. He pulled the covers up and turned over. Somehow, he was still aroused. Peter tried to recall the last time he and Katy had sex. Not since Timothy had arrived, he realized.

  ~*~

  The boy scared him.

  ~*~

  The barn was old. It had been on the property for decades. The house, Peter’s boyhood home, had been rebuilt twice during that time. Peter liked the barn. Katy didn’t.

  He stood in a far corner of the barn, smoking. Peter came out here to think. He came out here not to think. Katy would be displeased if she caught him smoking. So he kept watch on the barn door. She’d made him quit when they brought Timothy home. She didn’t want him to be a bad influence. Peter smirked. Funny, he thought, Katy hadn’t once mentioned Peter’s health.

  Peter finished the cigarette, stamped it out
and pushed it into the corner. He closed the magazine, put it back in the box, covered it and shoved it behind a hay bale. Then he went back to the house.

  Inside, Timothy was at the kitchen table, colouring in his Winnie-the-Pooh book. He loved Winnie-the-Pooh, especially Eeyore. Timothy reminded Peter of Eeyore; lonely, quiet, and sad.

  Katy was at the counter chopping carrots, onion, and celery. Neither she nor Timothy had so much as glanced at Peter when he entered the kitchen.

  “Where were you?” Katy said, not looking up.

  “In the barn.”

  Katy stopped chopping. She looked up. “You’re always out there, Peter. What do you get up to in that old place?”

  Again, like recent days, guilt pulled at him. “Not much,” he said. “Just checking for loose or rotted boards.” He didn’t know why he couldn’t just tell her that he hadn’t quit smoking. Maybe he didn’t want to disappoint her any more than he already had. Didn’t want her to see him as a failure.

  You are a failure, part of him whispered.

  Suddenly, Peter felt on the verge of tears.

  “Are you okay,” Katy asked. “You don’t look well.”

  Peter swallowed hard, pushed the emotion down. “F-Fine,” he said. “Perfectly.” He tried to lighten the mood. “How’s Timothy?” he said, and went to tousle the boy’s hair, but Timothy shrank away from him.

  Katy and Timothy were staring at him. Silent. Peter waved meekly. “I’ll just go wash up,” he said. Then he turned and left.

  ~*~

  Pieces of blackness stirred in him, heavy. He’d been in pain, suffering, for a very long time. Ever since...

  ~*~

  The boy scared him. He collected things in jars, the boy did. Dead things. Bugs, snakes, frogs. Timothy would take a large Mason jar and go out to the marshy area behind the house, hunting. When Peter saw the cricket in that first jar, he’d smiled, remembering his own youth. Days later the cricket was dead. Timothy hadn’t punched any holes in the jar lid. So he’d shown him what to do; put some breathing holes in the lid, added grass and ants for food. Later, Peter noticed another jar on Timothy’s dresser. It contained a dead Monarch butterfly, nothing else. There’d been no attempt to add food or breathing holes. “Timothy,” he’d said. “You can’t do that. You can’t kill things.”