by Amy Cross
"We can find a way to save you," I tell him. "We can -"
"More miracles?" he asks with a faint smile. "Is that really your plan, Thomas? Go to a city, hook up with some miraculous bunch of people who're gonna save the world, and then find some fucking doctors who can perform another miracle by saving me?" He sighs. "Face it. This body is old and gone. I'm already dead. I just have to wait for my mind to catch up."
"I'm not leaving you," I say firmly.
"I don't want you to leave me," he replies. "I want you to finish me off."
I shake my head.
"Please."
"I can't," I reply, trying to stay calm. "I already did it once, Joe. I can't do it again."
He pauses. "I was in pain that time," he says eventually. "I'm not in pain now. It's just about waiting, but that seems kinda pointless, right? Just sitting around, waiting for the lights to go off?" He pauses. "Fuck that shit, man. Do you know how I always wanted to die? In a fucking blaze of glory! You know, like some kind of fucking hero, with machines guns in my hands and hookers everywhere." He smiles. "Real immature shit, yeah? The full Troma kind of thing. And obviously that's not gonna happen, but at least I don't have to sit around, dragging it out forever."
"You can't just sit around and wait to die," I tell him. "That's insane!"
"I'm not waiting to die," he replies, turning and heading over to the table. Carefully, he lowers himself into a chair. "I'm already dead, dip-shit. I'm just waiting to rot away to nothing." He pauses. "Do you remember how Mom died at the kitchen table? It's hard to believe that was only about a week ago. I guess... I guess now it's my turn. I'm gonna die at a kitchen table too, just like her. Talk about a fucking comedown, huh?"
"No," I say firmly. "You can't just sit around like this."
"And how are you gonna stop me?" he asks. "If you try to drag me out of here, you'll probably end up pulling my goddamn head off anyway. I'm already falling apart." He pauses again. "You need to leave, Thomas. You need to get the hell out of here and just forget about me. I'm okay with it, really. It's too late for me, but you've still got a chance." He waits for me to say something. "Go on, Tommy. Get the fuck out of here. At least one of us should make it."
"I'm not leaving you."
"Then you can stick around and wait until my fucking head falls off," he replies. "Believe me, there are already maggots chewing through my flesh. It doesn't hurt, but I can feel them. They're hungry little bastards, burrowing their way through the meat. I can feel some of them wriggling in my brain, it's..." He pauses. "It's okay, Thomas. I'm not scared. Maybe I should be, but I just feel like I'm ready, you know? I've already died, really. Those few seconds when I knew you were killing me, I felt so free. I liked it, and I want it again. I'm at peace." He laughs. "Well, peace is the wrong word, but I'm pretty chill about it all."
"I'm not leaving you," I say again, sniffing back the tears.
"You wanna sit around and watch your older brother's head rot off?" he asks. "Seriously?"
"I'm not leaving you."
"Pervert."
I take a deep breath as I try to work out if there's any other way. Joe sure looks as if he's about to fall apart, and I guess I should accept his decision. Still, I know that when he's gone, I'll be alone. It's not as if I've got any chance of finding my sister Martha again, even if she's alive, so once Joe's gone, there'll be no-one left. Slowly, I walk over to the kitchen table and sit facing him. He's all I've got left, and once he's gone, I don't know where I'm supposed to go. Sure, I can get in the truck and drive away from this place, but what do I do after that? I know he's right about the cities, but at the same time it doesn't seem as if the countryside is much better. Every time I try to work out some kind of plan, to decide where to go, I come to the same conclusion: there's nowhere that's ever going to be safe.
"Come on," he says. "You've gotta be kidding. Get in the fucking truck and get the fuck out of here!"
"I want to be here with you," I tell him, sniffing back some more tears. "I don't care how long it takes, but I want to wait with you. It's my decision, Joe, and there's nothing you say that'll make me change my mind, so you'd better just get used to it, okay?" I take a deep breath. "I'll keep you company," I add, "and then I'll bury you, and then I'll get going."
"Don't bury me," he replies. "I'm claustrophobic."
I sigh.
"I mean it," he continues with a smile. "You can just leave me sitting here at this table. You never know, some kids might come by one time and get freaked out. I kinda wish I could stick around and see their faces, but I can already feel my body being destroyed. There's not much time left. Sooner or later, one of these maggots is gonna chew through an important part of my brain, and it'll be lights out."
"I'm going to wait with you," I say firmly.
"You're not making the right decision," he continues. "Don't be dense, Tommy."
"I don't care if it's the right decision or not," I reply. "It's what I'm doing."
"I'm not gonna be much company," he replies. "Jesus fucking Christ, I can feel a big fat maggot in my brain right now. It's trippy as shit."
"You swear too much," I point out. "Maybe we oughta pray or something."
He raises an eyebrow. "Pray?"
I nod.
"What the fuck for?"
I open my mouth to reply, but at first I'm not sure what to say. "I don't know," I continue eventually, "but it seems like it might be a good idea. You know..." I pause. "Something good might come out of it."
"You wanna sit here with your zombified, rotting brother, with some kind of fuckhead Nazi asshole locked in the basement, with the world falling apart all around us, and... you wanna put your hands together and pray?"
"I do."
"Fine," he says with a shrug. "What the hell? I've never tried it before, not since school anyway, so go ahead. Let's do this shit."
"Repeat after me," I say, closing my eyes. "Dear Lord."
"Dear fucking Lord."
"Joe!"
"Dear Lord," he says with a sigh.
I pause for a moment. "We ask you to look over this world and deliver us from whatever catastrophes you've seen fit to visit upon us. We ask you to keep us safe and to watch over us, and we ask you to watch over our sister Martha. Wherever she is, we ask that she's in good health and that she'll be okay."
"Yeah," Joe says, sounding a little more subdued, "look after Martha. None of us deserves this shit, and she's not a bad person. Keep her out of too much trouble, okay?"
"Amen," I add.
"Amen."
We sit in silence for a moment, before I suddenly realize that I can hear a voice somewhere nearby. Looking over at the door to the basement, I realize that the old man is talking down there.
"What's old Adolf going on about?" Joe asks.
Getting to my feet, I walk over to the door and take a moment to listen.
"Please," the old man is saying, his voice filled with fear and pain, "I'm begging you, don't come any closer. Leave me alone, please. Dear God..."
"What's he saying?" Joe calls out to me.
"Hang on!" I hiss, keen to hear more.
"I'm sorry, Sara," the old man continues. "Maybe I didn't treat you right, but I'm your father, for God's sake. I command you to go back over there! Get back in that corner!" I can hear him scrabbling about for a moment. "Get back over there!" he shouts. "I didn't tell you to get up! Obey me! You're my daughter and I command you to stop this! Leave me alone!"
I reach into my pocket, ready to get the key out, but at the last moment I reconsider. The truth is, I like hearing the fear in the old bastard's voice. If that makes me a bad person, after everything that's happened to me over the past few days, then I guess I just have to accept that I've become a little meaner than before. The old Thomas probably wouldn't have made it this far anyway; the old, naive Thomas would have panicked and ended up dead.
"Sara, please," the old man whimpers, "for the love of God and all that's holy, stop! I'm begging you! Se
e? I'm on my knees and I'm begging you. Don't do this. Go away! Leave me alone!" There's the sound of footsteps hurrying up the stairs, and suddenly he starts pounding on the door. "Let me out of here! Get me away from her!"
"Who's he talking to?" Joe asks.
"Help!" the old man screams, still banging on the door before, finally, he lets out a cry of pain and falls quiet.
"What the hell's happening in there?" Joe asks.
"I..." I start to say, before realizing that the old fool must be talking to the pile of bones in the corner of the basement. As he continues to whimper and moan, I put the key in the lock and struggle for a moment with the awkward, slightly warped door, before finally getting it unlocked and pulling it open. At the last moment, I hear a clattering sound, like bones being dropped onto the floor.
The first thing I see once the door is open is the set of bones, except now they're in the middle of the room, and the old man's body is next to them. I walk cautiously down the steps and head over, only to see that the old man's eyes are wide open, staring up at the ceiling with a horrified look on his face. I kick him gently in the side, but it's clear that he's dead. Turning and looking down at the bones, I can't help but stare at the skull.
"Sara?" I whisper after a moment. "Was that your name?" I pause. "What did he do to you?"
Silence.
"What's happening in there?" Joe shouts.
"Revenge," I whisper as I continue to stare at the skull for a moment. "I guess she waited."
Without saying anything else, I turn and hurry up the steps. At the last moment, I glance back down at the old man's body. I don't know what the hell happened down here, or what exactly he thought he saw as he was dying, but somehow it seems strangely fitting. Whoever that Sara girl was, I guess he treated her about as well as he treated me, in which case I don't feel any pity for the old bastard at all. Maybe I'm getting tougher or more mean-spirited, and maybe what I'm thinking isn't exactly very Christian, but he got what was coming to him.
Epilogue
Twenty years ago
"Mother?" Sara says, stepping cautiously into the dark room. "Mother, are you awake?"
She waits for a moment, listening to her mother's shallow breathing. At least the old woman is still alive, although that's not saying much: having been sick for so many years, Sara's mother has been bed-ridden for so long, her skin has begun to grow into the sheets. Sara has tried to keep her clean, but the job has proven too difficult, and now she merely brings food and water, and empties the bed-pan.
"I made soup," Sara says quietly, making her way across the room. She places the tray on a small table by the bed, before looking down at her mother's sleeping face. "I hope you like it," she adds, wondering whether she should try to wake the old woman. Finally, realizing that it's better to let her sleep, she turns and heads back to the door.
Turning back to look at her mother's sleeping form, she waits for a moment, as if she's expecting the old woman to wake up.
"Father's angry today," she says quietly, with tears in her eyes. "He's on the warpath. I don't think... I don't think you should get up for a while. Stay here. At least he won't come up and hurt you."
When she gets to the top of the stairs, Sara pauses. She can hear her father shuffling about downstairs, and she knows that if she doesn't go down soon, he'll come stumbling up to demand her attention. Every day, she fantasizes about killing the old man, but she knows she could never do something so cruel. For one thing, she believes God has a plan for her; for another, she worries that by killing him, she'd be bringing herself down to his level of sin and degradation. Taking a deep breath, she makes her way downstairs, bracing herself for whatever fresh spite and torture the old man might have in store.
"Where have you been?" he asks, pacing back and forth in the kitchen.
"I took soup to mother," she replies nervously, keenly aware that he seems more agitated than usual. The old man's moods seem to change with the weather, and right now he seems to be building up to a particularly violent storm. "She... She was asleep," Sara continues, "so I left it by her bed."
"You think your mother should be forced to endure cold soup?" he asks, stopping and fixing her with a look of pure malice. "After everything that woman has done for you, can you think of no better way to treat her than by taking cold soup to her room? Is that your idea of a good daughter?"
"I thought -"
"Your place is not to think!" he shouts, his voice seeming to shake the walls of the dilapidated old wooden house. "Your place is to be a good daughter! Your place is to think of others and serve your family with humility and respect!"
She opens her mouth to reply, but her whole body is trembling with fear. "I'm sorry father," she says eventually, her voice sounding weak and small. "You're right. I should have woken her -"
"Woken her?" he sneers. "Your poor mother tosses and turns all night, plagued already by your insolence and lack of care, and now you think that when she finally gets to sleep, you should go into her room and wake her? Have you no care, girl? Do you not think about the comfort of others?"
"What should I have done?" she asks timidly.
"What should you have done?" He pauses, before finally a cruel smile crosses his lips. "What should you have done? I shall tell you." He starts walking around the kitchen table, heading slowly toward her. "You should have been born with a better head on your shoulders. You should have grown up with some degree of sense and intelligence. You should have developed compassion and understanding." Reaching her, he pauses for a moment. "You should have waited to warm the soup until you were sure your mother was ready. Would one or two extra trips up and down the stairs have been so arduous? Are you really so lazy?"
"I'm -"
"Go to the basement."
"Father -"
"Go to the basement."
She feels the fear start to tighten in her gut. She knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that the basement is the worst form of punishment that her father can ever throw at her. Still, she also knows that any attempt to delay things or to plead with him will only make the situation worse. Like a condemned soul approaching the gallows, she turns and starts walking toward the door at the opposite end of the kitchen.
"Father," she says suddenly, turning back to face him. "Let me put it right. I'm sure mother hasn't been disturbed yet. I can make everything okay."
"Get moving!" the old man shouts, pushing her against the wall and then giving her another shove toward the door.
"I'm sorry!" she shouts.
"You'll stay down there until I'm comfortable that you've learned your lesson," her father continues. "Perhaps it will take just a few minutes for enlightenment and reason to enter your soul. Perhaps it will take days, or weeks, or years. Perhaps it will never happen, and your wretched little corpse will fester and rot until the end of times. Regardless, you shall receive no sustenance from either your mother or myself. The Lord will see fit to provide any and all nourishment that you deserve."
"But father -"
"Don't argue with me," he continues. "Don't try to defend yourself, or claim that you're being ill-treated. I've given you enough chances, my girl, and you've thrown them back in my face. Do you not understand that you're a miserable failure?"
As she reaches the door and stares down into the bare basement, the girl is suddenly filled with a sense of horror. She has been locked down there many times before, and she has always feared that one day he might leave her too long, or die before he can let her out. Although she tries to free her mind of foolish thoughts, she can't shake the fear that one day she'll die in the basement, alone and freezing.
"I can't," she says, her heart beating faster than she's ever known before. Turning, she sees her father's cold-hearted stare. "Father, I can't!" she says again. "I'll do anything! I promise, I'll be a better daughter, but please -"
"Wretch!" he shouts, pushing her down the steps.
Landing on the hard concrete floor, she lets out a cry of pain as one of her
fingers is snapped. She holds her breath and tries to ignore the pain, but soon it's pulsing through her body.
"I hope you'll see the error of your ways," her father says from the doorway. "I hope that, given time, my only child will understand the wickedness of her own heart. Make no mistake, though. If you fail to understand the nature of your sins, I shall have no hesitation when it comes to your fate. I would rather let you die down here, than allow you to raw breath anywhere else. Do you understand?"
Sitting up and examining her broken finger, she tries to ignore the pain. The bone has been cleanly snapped, however, with a small, ragged piece poking out through the bloodied flesh.
"I asked you a question," her father says. "Do I have to take my belt off and beat an answer out of you?"
"I understand," she whispers, before realizing that she needs to speak more loudly. "I understand," she says firmly, "but..." Pausing, she suddenly realizes that perhaps God is testing her in a different way, and that death might be a warm sanctuary from the harshness of the life she has endured for eighteen miserable years. "I will never apologize to you," she says finally. "I will wait for you to realize the wickedness in your heart, and I will wait for you to understand the nature of your sins, as I see them so clearly in front of me right now."
"Are you so keen to let Satan speak his words through your mother?" her father asks.
"You are the Devil himself," she replies, desperately hoping that he might finally lose his temper and end his life. All she wants now is a quick death, with as little pain as possible. "No Christian man could do the things you do," she continues, "and I would rather die and pass to the next life, then provide succor to a foul beast who just happens to be my father."
The old man stares at her for a moment.
"I have faith that you will see reason," he says eventually, taking a step back and swinging the door shut.
"And I have faith that you will one day suffer the same misery that you have visited upon me," she replies calmly. "I have faith that God will one day grant me the opportunity to make you see the error of your ways."
