“Is no good, none of this,” Gregori muttered while smoking another of his potent black cigarillos.
“Shut it, quack,” the angel hissed at him, waving away a cloud of tobacco smoke.
Slowly, Mimi returned to consciousness. She looked her age. The implants and injections that had promised to maintain her youth now made her face look as if it had been taken apart and then reassembled by a short-sighted monkey with clumsy hands. Without her heavy makeup, she was a ghoul, and the sedatives had clouded her eyes and slackened her jaw, so she drooled onto her pillow as she tried to speak.
“What are you ... where?” she mumbled as if through a mouth full of cotton.
“Mimi!” the angel said with rapturous adoration. “It’s me! I’ve come back! They tore us apart, but even that couldn’t keep me away. I’ve found you again! I’ll get you out of this nightmare. We’ll be together forever, just as we were always meant to be.”
The aging diva started to focus. There was first recognition in her eyes, and then they darkened with the shadow of fear.
“You? Oh God, not you!”
“Mimi!” said the angel, a hand to her chest. “I’ve come halfway across the county to find you. I woke up stuck on this loser’s shoulder.”
“Hey!” Marvin said. The angel hit him with a tiny hand.
“I’ve been running back to you ever since, Mimi darling. Aren’t you happy to see me?”
“They tore you off me. I begged them to take you away and they tore you off. Why are you back? Oh God, please take her away from me!” Mimi writhed on her giant bed, trying to get uncooperative limbs to work.
“It’s all going to be fine, Mimi darling. We’ll find a way to get beyond this. That bitch deserved everything she got, people must realize that.”
Mimi looked to Marvin. “You’ve got to help me. She’s a devil! They told me I’d be having an angel on my shoulder, but they gave me a devil! She whispered such terrible things, made me do such terrible things. She forced me to hurt Olivia. She kept telling me to push the glass in her face over and over again until I just couldn’t help myself. Oh, she made me hurt that poor woman!”
The angel tutted. “Now that’s hardly true, is it darling? You didn’t do anything you didn’t want to. I just helped you actualize your anger, and made sure you put your money where your mouth was. That’s why we’re so good together. I know how you think. I know what’s really on your mind, the things you whisper when the rest of the world can’t hear you. I’m the one that can make those things really happen.”
“No, please just leave me alone. I want to be alone!”
“Nonsense, darling. I’ve brought a doctor with me, a good one.”
Gregori moved forward and waved a yellow-stained hand. “Is good evening, nice to meet you, yes?”
“He’s going to put us back together, Mimi. We’ll be one again, you and me against the world. What do you say?”
Mimi Fedhora raged. She screamed. She bellowed obscenities that even made Marvin blush. “If you get stitched back in, I’ll rip you out with my bare hands. I’ll stamp on you until there’s nothing left. I’ll kill myself before I have you anywhere near my shoulder.”
Her tirade went on in this manner for quite a while.
Eventually, the angel just turned her head to her new host. “Kill the bitch, Marvin,” she said dispassionately.
Marvin took one of Gregori’s operating instruments, which was still smeared with the remnants of its previous procedure, and attacked the helpless woman on the bed. He did this without hesitation and wasn’t sure why. On his shoulder, the angel encouraged him, her face practically orgasmic with pleasure as she wiped the blood of her previous host away. When Marvin was finished, Mimi was little more than a smear over the expensive silk covers. The angel leaned over and kissed him in the cheek, and he felt a sense of incredible well-being.
“I believe they call this bonding with your host,” he said.
“The beginning of a beautiful friendship.” the angel agreed, licking her gore-splattered lips.
Dr. Gregori had fled the room, but they managed to chase him down before he could escape the building. They performed a procedure of their own upon him. When they had finished, Marvin used Mimi’s shower to clean them both and found some fresh and rather grand clothing in one of her closets, a remnant from the days when she still entertained guests of the opposite sex. He felt good. He looked good. The angel agreed.
“What do we do now?” asked Marvin.
“You know, I’ve always wanted to take a ride on a Harley,” the angel purred.
Marvin rolled up his $2,000 sleeves.
“Then a Harley it is,” he purred back.
CHANGE OF HEART
BY ROB M. MILLER
Tara slammed both fists against the tabletop. “Swear to God, Jerry, I wish your mom had knocked herself off instead of your dad.”
Jerry just stared at her.
Silence.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Jerry walked over and hugged his wife. “Sorry, too ... and I’d be pretty pissed if the thought had never crossed my own mind.” He pulled away and looked in Tara’s eyes. “But my dad is dead. Besides you, mom’s all the family I got, nuts as she is. And now, well, all she wants is a visit. A chance to make peace.”
“No goddamned way.” Tara brushed her blond hair back over a shoulder, and then glared at her husband with her chin jutting forward. The chin was key. Whenever Jerry saw that particular tell, he knew the fight was over. “And we’re still not pregnant.”
“What?”
“Pregnant. Pregos. Bun in the oven.” Tara took a seat at the dining room table. “And it’s not in the budget to figure out why, either. Furthermore, what if it’s true?”
“If what’s true?” Jerry gave his wife a playful wink. “That we might just have to keep working at it? We’ve only been married five years, and’ve only been trying for three. We’ve got time.”
Tara’s hands flew up in frustration. “Your mother, dork? She’s a witch, right? I mean, that’s been her bag since you were a kid, since your dad passed, and then, even after you got taken away: black magic, tarot cards, potions, wands and crystal balls—the whole shebang.” An ugly pause. “What if it’s true? Her curse? You heard her, and at our own wedding for Christ’s sake: ‘Lookee here, my son has done gone and married himself an ugly duckling ... a cheap, infertile whore that’ll never sprout the fruit of life.’”
Jerry took a seat next to his wife. “Don’t be ridiculous. The woman’s mental. Always has been—and she’s got a monthly disability check to prove it. The last thing we need is her sickness infecting the two of us.” He tried to take one of his wife’s hands—and failed. “C’mon, hon. Since when did you become superstitious?”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“‘Sides, truth be known, the real curse came from my dad, and obviously on me, not you.”
“How’s that?”
“About an hour after coming home with mom from one of their séances or whatever, back when mom was just starting to dabble, the man pulls me aside and says: ‘Movies have it all wrong, son; whatever, you do, don’t have any children.’”
“Creepy. You never told me that.”
“Yeah, it is. He even made me promise—and no, I’ve never told anybody until now. Anyway, a few minutes later, he went out into the garage and did it. Rode a shotgun right out of my life forever, the bastard.”
“You’re right.”
“I am?”
“Yeah, I’m being silly. It’s all a bunch of superstitious nonsense.”
“I wouldn’t be too quick saying that. Look at what you did.”
“What?”
“With mom … you’re the one that told her she needed to stop being such a child, all obsessed with her Halloween bullshit.”
Laughter.
“And it looks like it worked. She wants to come and visit and make things right. Says she’s changed. And hell, it h
as been five years. What if she’s telling the truth?”
“Whatever. I still hate the woman. It’s that simple.”
“Dinner?” Jerry half-said, half-asked. “One meal, hon. That’s all I’m saying.” He reached for Tara’s hand, this time succeeding. “A dinner her first night into town, and it’ll be pleasant. She’ll be nice, or we’ll give her the boot.”
“The boot, yeah. I like the sound of that—the boot, right upside her head.”
Jerry understood his wife’s vehemence.
“Fine.” Tara stood and went to move out of their living room and into the hallway. “But one mean act, and I swear ... in front of God-’n-country, on our front lawn, I’ll burn that woman at the stake.”
“Deal.” Jerry decided not to follow his wife into the bedroom just yet. Instead, he stared at his mother’s letter resting atop the table, and then gave it a sniff. Things sure smelled different with his mom. Used to be everything she touched got scented with her nasty patchouli oil. Her latest mail, however, smelled like it’d gotten sprayed by something sold at Nordstrom’s. A good sign. Whatever, the one thing he couldn’t afford right now was another disaster with Tara. He also needed to figure out what to say to the woman on the phone. They hadn’t talked in ages. And then, of course, was the biggie: When in the hell are we gonna get pregos?
Tara gave the place a final once-over. Everything seemed easy-peasy-nice-and-cleanzee. She wasn’t that concerned about impressing mom-in-law, but at the same time, she’d be damned before giving the old cow any ammunition by showing an ill-kept home.
“Everything’s fine, sweetheart,” Jerry said, walking up beside his wife, giving her a playful slap on the backside. “Don’t be so antsy. And don’t forget, we’ve got a baseball bat ready in the coat closet, just in case.”
“Very funny. Maybe some wolfs bane is be in order.”
Jerry laughed. “A better idea would be to drive down to The Majestic, raid their motel rooms for a bunch of Gideon Bibles, and then—you know, put them, like, everywhere.”
Tara turned and slugged Jerry on the shoulder. “Now you think of something good. Too bad we’re running out of time; she’s going to be here any minute.”
“Hope so,” Jerry said. He turned toward the kitchen, smiling. “Ummm! That smells good. If she’s not here soon, we’re going to have to start without her.”
“That reminds me, I better check on the roast. It’s almost done.” Tara started to turn and almost made it, when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Jerry said.
“It’s all right, go ahead. I’ll stand with you. We can get shocked together, seeing what kind of black cape she’s wearing now.” Knowing her face was bunched into a hardened pinch, Tara did her best to relax. God, I hate the cow, but if I don’t want her coming in and starting trouble, at least I can slap a smile on.
Jerry clasped his wife’s hand and led the both of them to the door. Jerry was already surprised. The bell had only rung once. Not like mom. She always pushed and prodded and stabbed until somebody got the damn door open. Hmm, he mused. Maybe things are going to work out, after all.
He opened the door.
“Good evening,” Joan Bannan said from the flower-bedecked entryway. “Can this ashamed, ugly woman come inside and begin her apologies?”
It was all Tara could do to keep her eyes from exploding from their sockets. She knew Jerry was just as surprised, could feel it in the way he squeezed her hand. Joan wasn’t standing in her doorway the way she’d been expected—black hair, maybe a cap, an oversized upside- down cross around her neck.
Instead, Joan looked the way a fiftyish woman of maturity and class was supposed to—an imploring smile on a face wearing only the most modest of makeup, low-heeled black dress shoes, tan slacks, white blouse, and a small right-side-up cross resting across her bosom. The dyed black hair was gone, replaced now with the woman’s own natural brown, slightly sprinkled with silver strands, pulled back and pinned in place.
“Come in,” Tara managed to say, beating her stunned husband.
Jerry—keeping ahold of his wife’s hand—stepped back and to the side, opening a path for his mother. As Joan walked by and into their home, a subtle hint of perfume greeted his nose. Is that Escada? he thought, thankful for the confirmation that mom’s patchouli-wearing days were over.
Coming full into the center of her son and daughter-in-law’s comfortable-but-not-cramped living room, she turned and faced her estranged family. “The new me,” she said, turning slowly, full circle. “The old version caused nothing but grief, and, for me, one heck of a lot of shame. Thanks so much for letting me stop by. I have so much to answer for.”
“Mom, the witch thing, you’re—”
“All gone, Jerry,” she said, holding her head down, embarrassment clearly showing through her posture and reddening cheeks. “Stupid and childish stuff, that was. Crazy stuff. A big reason why I was such an evil bitch, and why,” Joan raised a hand and gestured toward her son’s lady, “Tara has every valid reason in the world to hate my guts. I’m just happy I eventually got the therapy and medication needed to not have my brain all wonky.”
“Joan, don’t talk that way! We’re happy to see you,” Tara said, the lie slipping out easily, almost as if even she believed it. She wanted to believe it.
“You’re saying that, and if you’re not being overly polite, you’re certainly being too gracious. I deserve to have your door shut in my face, not stand here in a lovely house with the smell of perfect steaks coming out of your kitchen.”
“Speaking of which ...,” Jerry glanced at Tara.
“Yes. Thanks ... it’s a roast!” Tara started moving toward the kitchen. “I’ll be right back with dinner. We’re going to feast.”
“Wonderful,” Joan answered. Her son showed her to a place-setting at the table. “I haven’t had a feast in a long, long time.”
What a nice home, Joan thought, unpacking the suitcase Jerry had brought in from the car. She placed her purse on the bed. A three-bedroom townhouse, digital cable, two full baths, gorgeous kitchen complete with island. Everything. Only thing missing ... the patter of little feet.
She’d already opened the room’s empty dresser drawers; all that was left was the putting away of a few things. “Here you are,” she said, voice low. She smiled and picked up a lidded glass jar from her suitcase. Inside, floating in a clear, viscous fluid, was what looked like a piece of misshapen coal.
She stepped over to the room’s cushioned rocker and sat down. For a few moments, she stared at the jar, looking intently at the fist-sized lump of rock, before setting it atop a nightstand.
Unbuttoning her blouse, she sighed. She felt that things had gone well. The binding hex placed years before was still in full effect, but would be gone come midnight. Soon, very soon, Tara would be in a state of conception. Oh, boy, Joan thought. Jerry and wife are going to be happy then.
Dinner had been a sweeping success, too. Joan had to admit, that bitch could cook. The roast had been superb, along with all the rest—the red wine, the baked potatoes, the homemade rolls, mixed vegetables, cheesecake dessert, everything.
She had won them over. They had about tripped over each other’s tongues when they’d started telling her, begging her, to stay. At least for the night, but the weekend, at least, if she would. They had no idea, as of yet, that she was going to be staying for a lot longer than that.
She had a grandson in her future, prophesied so many years before—a bright, handsome boy with a curious glint in his left eye. He would be needing his Grams.
Blouse wide open, Joan undid her front-clasping bra, exposing the five-inch long zipper running between her breasts and just to the left of her precious third nipple.
She grasped the zipper and pulled down, opening up her chest cavity. A rose-smelling draft poured from the opening. Joan whispered a cant into the air and, on the nightstand, the jar’s lid unscrewed itself. Then, reaching inside her chest, Joan pulled out a robust, healt
hy heart from within. The muscle pulsated in her hand, its four valves still pumping away.
Joan was glad to be rid of it for the night. The thing pained her, but she needed it, at least during the day and the early evening hours, at least for the time being.
She switched the heart for the coal and whispered the cant again, sealing the heart in the jar, and put the coal into her chest. Immediately she could feel her internal organs begin to desiccate nicely, her body becoming infused with energy of a different sort.
She zipped up and put on her nighty.
She had lied, yes. And she wasn’t done—not by a long shot. There would be plenty more lies coming. The heart made them believable. But she hadn’t lied about everything.
She smiled.
It is true that I no longer mess with the childish stuff.
HEARING MILDRED
BY WELDON BURGE
Mildred Mayfield died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm on the cold eve of Easter. She’d left her Easter Sunday best spread out on the bed in the guest bedroom. Harold, her husband, figured she’d been thinking of him, not church—what better clothes to bury her in? Mildred was always so thoughtful, Harold thought. If she didn’t tell him what to do, she did it for him.
“Dad, we need to talk,” William said. He sat on the couch opposite Harold’s recliner in the living room. The TV, as always, was tuned to an old cops show.
William was a respected tax attorney, a man who had political aspirations in the state. He had helped Mildred and Harold with their retirement planning, setting up their estate. But he had spent less and less time with his parents over the years as his career took off and he had his own family to support.
Harold never called his son, his only child, William. He would always be Billy to him. But, it didn’t seem right to call a fifty-five-year-old attorney Billy.
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