Trapped Within

by Bradshaw, Duncan P.

  I figured the sheriff got some of that money too, when all was said and done.

  I saw him drivin’ a fancy new Cadillac around town. One that looked just like Daddy’s.

  Shelly and me, we never told anybody what we saw out there in the woods. We didn’t speak a word about it to anybody except each other.

  We spent many a night lyin’ awake, theorizin’ about its origins. We had devised a way of communicatin’ that Mama and Daddy didn’t know about; at some point we had discovered that we could sit there in our own rooms, on opposite sides of the house, and talk through the furnace vents. Somehow our voices didn’t reach our parents’ room. It was somethin’ special, and a whole lot better than two Dixie cups on an old piece of string.

  What was the slit, we wondered? Where did it come from?

  Was it from another galaxy? Somethin’ supernatural? Maybe it was some kinda new species of plant or animal, or a combination of the two?

  What did it eat, before Granpappy came along? Did small forest animals keep it from starvin’? How often did it need to eat?

  We eventually learned the answers to some of our questions. Not all of ‘em. But some.

  Two years to the day we found it out there in the woods, tragedy hit our family again.

  We shoulda known Daddy would go too far, sooner or later. We had seen him hurt Mama one too many times.

  We shouldn’t have been surprised when he killed her.

  Once again, Daddy’s old pal the sheriff was kind enough to help him out.

  The case was closed after only a week or so. The official word was that Mama was bringin’ Daddy a cup of coffee while he was working in the yard, she spilled some of it, and then she slipped in the puddle and fell, hittin’ her head on the corner of the porch.

  I guess nobody cared to look any deeper into the whole thing. Nobody bothered to ask why there wasn’t a cup of coffee anywhere to be found, or why the porch didn’t have any of Mama’s blood on it but that old broken axe-handle Daddy kept by the door sure did. Times was different back then. In those days, a woman was expected to obey her husband, and if he slapped her around a little she must have had it comin’. We was poor, Daddy was good buddies with the only lawman in town, and Mama didn’t have any family to make sure her killer was held accountable for what he’d done.

  Once the sheriff said the case was closed, the case was closed.

  One night, not long after they buried her, me and Shelly was layin’ in our beds, talkin’ through the vents.

  “Jesse,” Shelly’s voice came to me. “You reckon I’m gonna grow up to be just like her one day? Married to a man who hits me every chance he gets, always dreamin’ about somethin’ better for me and my kids… ”

  “No,” I said. “You ain’t gonna be like that.”

  She didn’t say anything for several minutes. I wasn’t sure she believed me. I wasn’t sure I believed me.

  “It ain’t right, is it? He’s gonna get away with it.”

  “No, sis, it ain’t right.”

  “It’s hungry,” Shelly said. “And it’s up to us to feed it.”

  We was lyin’ outside in the yard on an old blanket, starin’ up at the stars and listenin’ to the crickets. Fireflies blinked all around us like the eyes of the night itself eavesdroppin’ on our conversation. Behind us, through the house’s front windows, we could see the flickerin’ blue glow of the television—Daddy passed out in front of The Twilight Zone.

  “What in the world are you talkin’ about?” I asked her.

  She chewed at her bottom lip, tryin’ to find the right words. The look on her face suggested that she had been givin’ this a lot of thought lately.

  “It gives you things, when you feed it. When you don’t, it takes things away. Like… once it gets your attention you’d better not forget. If you do, it… punishes you.”

  “It was survivin’ just fine out there before Granpappy came along,” I said.

  “All I know is, once you give it something it becomes a part of you. It took Granpappy from us, and now we’ve got more money than we’ve ever seen before. But we’ve forgotten about it over the last couple years. We’ve left it out there to fend for itself. So it took Mama away from us.”

  “You’re talkin’ crazy,” I said.

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “Daddy’s the one who took Mama away from us,” I reminded her. “He hit her in the head with his axe handle.”

  She shot a nervous glance toward the house.

  I had to admit—there was a strange sorta logic to her words. I didn’t know why. But it all made sense. Goosebumps crawled up my skinny forearms.

  She said, “I dream about it, you know.”

  “You dream about it?”

  “All the time. That’s how I know it’s pissed off.”

  I was silent.

  “You don’t?” she asked me. “You’ve never dreamed about it?”

  “No.”

  “Weird. I figured you did too.”

  A chill ran down my spine. I wasn’t sure why, but it bothered me to think that the thing in the woods had been visitin’ Shelly in her dreams.

  Something else disturbed me more, though.

  For those first few seconds after she told me she’d been dreamin’ about it… I was so jealous I wanted to hit her.

  Mama had been in the ground a little over a month when Shelly’s voice came to me through the vent one night.

  “Jesse,” she said. “You awake?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You still talk to that Mayhew boy?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “Why?”

  “I know what we’ve gotta do… ”

  There was a kid who lived down the road, went to the same school as us till he was finally kicked out for good. His name was Ellis Mayhew.

  Ellis had brought a gun to school earlier that year. He’d pulled it out durin’ recess, started flashin’ it around, showin’ off. To all the other boys in my class, includin’ me, Ellis was a legend for a while. Didn’t matter that it wasn’t even a real gun. Ellis’s dad was into breeding European deer or something like that; Ellis had stolen one of his tranquilizer guns.

  The day after me and Shelly decided on our course of action, I paid Ellis Mayhew a visit.

  I told him I’d give him three hundred bucks for that gun.

  He told me he’d take six. Said he already got his ass beat one time already; if he was gonna risk that by stealin’ the gun again then it better be worth his trouble.

  I took the money from Daddy’s wallet while he slept, and the next morning the deal was sealed.

  The day was slowly dyin’. It would be dark soon. I was startin’ to worry that Shelly had lost her nerve. It was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears.

  I hid behind a giant oak tree on the edge of the clearing, about twenty feet from the slit. I held the tranquilizer gun tightly, with both hands… Its presence made me feel a little better, but not much.

  Finally I heard them approachin’. Dead leaves and twigs crunched beneath their shoes. I could already tell by the slur in Daddy’s voice that he had been drinkin’. It was all he ever did in those days, especially since he didn’t have to worry about money anymore.

  “This better be worth it, girl, whatever you wanna show me,” I heard him say. “It’s been a long damn day, and I ain’t got time for games.”

  “Oh, it’ll be worth it, Daddy,” Shelly replied. “I promise.”

  I waited, listened as they drew closer. I didn’t move, tried to breathe as quietly as possible.

  Meanwhile, I was pretty sure I saw the slit pulse gently, as if it knew what was about to happen. I saw this out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t look directly at it. I wasn’t too fond of bein’ alone with it.

  When they stepped into the clearing, I felt sick. Shelly’s shirt was torn, and I could see a hint of her bra underneath. I hadn’t even known before that moment that my sister wore a bra. She had a touch of make-up on. She looked a lot like M
ama.

  She had lured Daddy out here with promises of something more.

  “Well, girl, what is it?” he said when they stood in the middle of the clearing, about ten feet from the slit.

  “It’s time for you to go, Daddy,” Shelly said.

  “What?”

  “Do it, Jesse! Do it now!”

  I stepped out from behind the tree.

  “What the hell is this?” said Daddy.

  I pointed the gun at him, squeezed the trigger.

  The gun bucked in my hands.

  At first I thought I had missed. But then I saw the dart sticking out of Daddy’s thigh.

  He reached down, pulled it out. Stared at it.

  He took several steps toward me, but then listed from side to side like a man on a ship caught in a violent storm.

  “You kids… you’re gonna get it… ”

  He blinked at us. Dropped the dart.

  And then he toppled forward, face-first, into a pile of leaves.

  We didn’t say anything for several seconds. I don’t think either one of us expected it to be so easy.

  “Holy shit, Jesse,” Shelly said. “We did it.”

  “It ain’t done yet,” I said.

  I rushed across the clearing to stand beside her, over Daddy.

  She said, “How long do you think—”

  “Not long. We gotta hurry.”

  I took one of Daddy’s arms then. She took the other.

  We grunted as we dragged him across the forest floor, toward the slit. He was heavy, and it took all of our strength to get him over there.

  “Shelly,” I said, “Are we sure about this?”

  “Damn right we are.”

  We propped him up against the slit. He let out a little moan. For the next minute or so, he just looked like a drunk passed out on somebody’s front porch.

  “Nothing’s happenin’,” I said.

  “Just… wait.”

  We didn’t have to wait long.

  The slit parted slowly, like two thick brown curtains slowly drawin’ back from one another, and it began to suck Daddy inside. It took his head first. Watchin’ it made me think of something bein’ gradually consumed by quicksand. Daddy’s head tilted back, almost like he was raisin’ his face toward the heavens to say a silent prayer, but he didn’t wake up as he was sucked inside.

  He looked peaceful.

  Thirty or forty seconds passed, and then we could no longer see the top half of body.

  About the time it got to his knees, I guess he woke up. He started kickin’. His workboots thumped against the forest floor. But it didn’t do any good.

  A minute later he was gone. Every bit of Daddy had been sucked inside of the slit. As if he had never been there at all.

  The woods were silent.

  “Good riddance, you son-of-a-bitch,” said Shelly.

  Her expression gave me chills. She didn’t look angry. She didn’t look glad to see him go. She just looked numb. As if her mind was somewhere else, far away.

  I stared at the slit.

  It didn’t move.

  But a couple seconds later I was pretty sure I heard it burp.

  We was adopted by a local couple who lived a mile or so from the house where me and Shelly grew up. They owned a chain of furniture stores in the area, and they was the sweetest people you could ever meet. Before long we was livin’ in a three-story house with fancy knickknacks in every room, a carpet that felt like cat’s fur when you walked across it barefooted, and a fancy blacktopped driveway. I remember Shelly sayin’ one time how she felt kinda like the main character from Annie, that lucky orphan girl from the funny pages that used to make our real Mama laugh.

  Life was good, for now. Really good.

  It was like we had been blessed by some higher power.

  It was a Christmas night a few months later, I remember, when me and Shelly found ourselves discussin’ everything that had happened. I don’t know what brought it on, or who even raised the subject. The house was warm, our bellies were full. Both of our bedrooms were nearly overflowing with new toys and clothes. We had never felt so loved. So blessed.

  “Everything that’s happened, it’s ‘cause of the thing in the woods,” Shelly said. “That damn slit.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” I asked her.

  We sat on her bed this time, talkin’ by the dim glow of the lamp on her bedside table. The days of havin’ to conspire through the vents like convicts, the way we used to do when we lived with Mama and Daddy, were long gone.

  “She takes a sacrifice. And then she gives you things in return. That’s what I think.”

  “There you go again,” I said. “Who says that’s so bad? And what’s this she business?”

  Shelly shrugged. “I don’t know. I just started thinkin’ of it like that. And I decided it’s a female.”

  I frowned, shook my head. I hadn’t thought about the thing’s gender at all. I’m not even sure I ever considered it a livin’, breathin’ thing. It just was.

  “She gives you things. Makes you rich. But I’m not sure I want ‘em, Jesse. I don’t want ‘em, if this is what it takes to get ‘em.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re feelin’ guilty,” I said. “He got what he deserv—”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t feel guilty about him. I’d never feel guilty about what we did to him.”

  “We’ve got it good now, Shelly. We’ve got two foster parents who care about us. The kids at school don’t point and laugh ‘cause we’re always wearin’ hand-me-down clothes with holes in ‘em. And… he’s gone. You’ve gotta be happier about that than anybody.”

  It was the closest I ever came to lettin’ on that I knew about what Daddy used to do to her.

  “Mama’s still gone,” she said. “There ain’t no bringin’ her back.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “I’m just afraid, Jesse,” she said. “I feel like something’s comin’. Something bad. I don’t know how to explain it. She makes things worse than they were before, I think, if you go too long without feedin’ her. Don’t you feel it too, little brother?”

  I swallowed loudly, looked out her bedroom window at the thick, black night. I imagined it—her?—out there in the woods.

  I saw tears in my sister’s eyes.

  Was she aware, even then, of what lay ahead for her? Did she know?

  Two months after our sixteenth birthday, my sister was diagnosed with leukemia.

  One minute, Shelly and I was walkin’ into the school together, laughin’ about some dirty joke a kid on the bus had told us.

  The next thing I know, I’m gettin’ pulled out of fifth-period Social Studies and called into the Guidance Counselor’s office. I was informed that my sister had collapsed during P.E., and our foster parents had come to pick her up.

  Three days later, the doctors told our new Mom and Dad that Shelly had a year or two to live, at best.

  But Shelly didn’t even want that.

  She had other plans.

  A few months after she was diagnosed, I heard her callin’ me into her room. She’d had a few treatments by this time, but she hadn’t started to waste away yet, so at that point her voice was still loud and strong.

  I ran into her room, thinkin’ something was wrong. I always thought something was wrong, ever since I got the news of her sickness. Like we had always been so close that she might know the exact moment she was about to die, and she would make sure she called me in to say goodbye before it happened.

  She sat up in her bed, smiled sadly at me when I stepped into her room. “Close the door.”

  I did as she asked. “What is it, Shelly? What’s goin’ on?”

  “Come here.” She patted the bed. “Come sit beside me, little brother.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you hand me my glass of water?”

  “Sure.” I got it for her, from her bedside table.

  She sipped at it. I got a chill, watchin’ her cheeks sink in as
she sucked at the straw. For a second I thought I could clearly see the outline of my sister’s skull, and I wondered how long it would be before she looked like that all the time.

  She handed the cup back to me.

  “Jesse,” she said, “do you love me?”

  “What kinda question is that?” I said. “I love you more than anything else in the world. You know that.”

  “Then you’d do anything for me, right? Even if it sounded crazy as hell. You’d do anything to make me happy?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Within reason. I mean, I doubt I’d set myself on fire for you. But I would hope you wouldn’t ask me too.”

  She laughed weakly. “Silly. More water.”

  This time I held the cup for her as she drank.

  “What’s goin’ on, Shelly? What are you gettin’ at?”

  “I need you to do somethin’ for me, Jesse. It would mean a lot to me. And it’s what I want. So even if it sounds crazy, I want you to do it. I need you to do it.”

  “What is it?” I asked her.

  “I want you to take me out into the woods.”

  I waited for it. Somehow I knew exactly what she was gonna say before the words fell from her tiny mouth.

  “I want you to feed me to her.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I want you to feed me to the slit.”

  I told her I couldn’t do it. I lost count of how many times we argued about it over the next year or so. I think she hated me because I wouldn’t do what she asked me to do.