Becoming

by Glenn Rolfe

  He didn’t hear the door creak open or see the rubber bat held tightly in his father’s grasp.

  A backhand shocked him to attention.

  “Get up, boy.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Never mind, I told you to get up.”

  His father grabbed him by the collar, the t-shirt tearing as he was pulled to his feet.

  “What are you doing with that?”

  His father raised the bat and smiled.

  “The dishes ain’t gonna clean themselves.”

  Clint raised his arms to fend the old man off.

  “Don’t be such a pussy. Your mom’s not here anymore, that means someone needs to pick up the slack.”

  His father poked him in the chest with the bat. He’d hit Clint plenty growing up. Some nights he’d be left with a bloody lip, or black eye, but it never went too far. His mother would distract his father, then bring him down from whatever rage-induced trance he seemed to be in.

  Sitting here with the man, obviously in one of his states, poking the bat at him, Clint didn’t want to shed tears, but he was afraid. The alcohol and sweat permeated the room in his presence, also nothing new, but there was wickedness swimming behind those eyes. It had been there all along. He knew his mother had shielded him from this version of his father.

  As soon as the first tear rolled past his chin, Jack Truman and his bat ushered in the new order. Prodded in the chest, stomach, and even in the genitals, Clint stumbled backwards and fell to the floor.

  “You’ll get those dishes done, you hear me, crybaby? Or I swear to Christ…”

  The rage in his dark eyes turned to something worse as the man licked his lips.

  “I’ll make a man of you yet, boy.”

  Clint shut his eyes tight, waiting for whatever was next, but the floor creaked as the shadow standing over him receded.

  The worst was yet to come.

  The threats, the verbal attacks, grew. His father made him drop out of school to take care of the house. No longer needing to worry about explaining away any bruises, the physical abuse escalated, as well. The rubber bat would become Clint’s preferred punishment.

  The first sexual encounter came two nights before his fifteenth birthday.

  He’d been asleep when his father’s calloused hands pulled him from the bed. Startled awake, the nightmarish vision of his father—nude and erect—had been standing over him, and Clint prayed for God or his mother (or her ghost) to intervene. He tried to resist, fought even, swinging out with his scrawny fists. He was met with the cast iron knuckles of a man who’d worked six days a week at the shipyard for the past twenty-two years. Resistance was beaten out of him in a matter of minutes.

  “Your mother didn’t like this part of the job, either.”

  His father slapped his penis against his cheek, sliding it down to his busted, bloody lips.

  When he was finished, his father ran his meaty fingers through Clint’s hair.

  “Now, was that so hard? That’s my good boy.”

  Clint was left confused, humiliated, and alone as his father closed the door. Wiping the mess from his face, he crawled into the corner and cried himself back to sleep.

  Five years later, Clint now had the cancer devouring his father’s stomach to thank for stopping the monster known as Jack Truman.

  The sallow skin, thinned muscles, and sunken eyes did little to alleviate that man’s horrid appearance though, instead, they enhanced the evil within. Clint stepped over the threshold. The piss and shit stench coalescing with the smell of death coming from the man’s body permeated the back room. His father turned his head from the black and white western on the small TV atop the bureau and leered at him.

  “You got my meds?”

  “It’s not time y--”

  “I don’t give a goddamn what fuckin’ time it is. Get me those fucking pills.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s my good boy.”

  Clint shriveled.

  After the medications knocked his father out there was no waking him.

  Clint crept down to the basement to check on his guest.

  “Are you awake?” he said, descending the stairs. Jennifer—he’d learned her name from her papers in her backpack--lay perfectly still on the workbench to which he’d tied her.

  “I know you’re awake. And I know you’re scared.”

  He traced one of his rough fingers around her chin and stopped at the edge of the duct tape. She opened her eyes and shook her head.

  “Shh, shh, shh. It’s okay. I’m going to help you. I’m going to take the tape off, okay? But don’t scream.”

  He peeled it back and set it aside.

  “Let me go,” she pleaded.

  “Listen to me, Jennifer. I have a much better future in mind for you.”

  “I don’t want it… I don’t. I just want to go home.”

  He gripped her jaw.

  “You will.”

  Chapter Six

  The cool air swirled around Greg Hickey as he climbed from the wet depths of his new home. There was another here somewhere. The lady of the lake had shown him, but he wasn’t to worry about that one now. The other was sick and would not make it. She’d chosen Greg to carry out her charge. He would serve her and serve her well. First, he wanted to gaze upon his old home, his old friends.

  Entering the darkness, the trees dancing with the wind, he felt the gift surge within him. Standing at the edge of the woods, dripping wet, the green haze radiated from his eyes, and cast the soil and rocks in its emerald glow. He smiled, extending his arms into their new forms. He lashed out with the tentacles, slapping branches from his path. Trees thinned as the trailer park came into sight. Outdoor lights illuminated porches and front yards, new and old cars and trucks parked silent and still. Inside, families gathered and zoned into their plethora of devices, distracted from reality, unaware of the creature in the dark.

  Greg pulled his slime covered appendages back into their human form. He clenched and unclenched his fists. So much change…so much power… so much more…. He was going to change them all. One by one.

  Chapter Seven

  Michele woke up in a cold sweat. A dream of Greg, and the thing that took him into the lake, clung like the sheets to her tired body. She hit the power button on her Kindle trying to use it as a light to find the water bottle on her nightstand. The device needed to be charged. She pulled up her shade hoping for enough moonlight to find her way around. Twin green lights on the other side of the glass blinked out of existence. She clutched the bed sheet to her face and dropped out of view.

  Green eyes…just like in the lake.

  Stop it. That was your dream. You’re just freaked out.

  “There’s nothing out there,” she whispered.

  Easing the blanket from her face, the moon bright and full in the sky, like an eye clear and bright watching and waiting, she steadied her breathing and sat up. Steeling her nerves, she turned her head and screamed.

  “Daddy!”

  The bedroom door flung open slamming against the wall.

  “What is it?”

  She was curled up in the small space between her dresser and the wall. Lifting her chin, tears flowing down her cheeks, she tried to tell him, but no words came.

  Her shaky finger pointed toward the window.

  Her dad kneeled on her bed looking from side to side for the impossible.

  “I don’t see anything. What did you see?”

  ‘It…it was…”

  “What?”

  “It was Greg.”

  She didn’t want to cry, not anymore, but mentioning his name out loud continued to have this effect on her.

  Her dad got up and reached out to her. She slipped her hand into his rough and calloused palms and let him lift her, holding her in his arms like she was just a kid. She clenched her arms around his neck, burying her wet face into his shoulder. The scent of his aftershave, something that came in a green bottle, and his natura
l body odor, stale but not unpleasant, comforted her.

  She refused to look at the window.

  Even with her eyes shut, she still saw him. Greg and the two bright green lights where his brown eyes should have been were now imprinted on her brain. And the awful grin stretched across his greasy face. Dark gums and sharp little teeth. He was a walking nightmare.

  Her father held her until she fell back to sleep.

  Sometime in the morning, Michele woke up alone, grateful the bad dreams hadn’t followed her. The white shade across the room did little to hold back the morning sun. The golden warmth alleviated the ice-cold terror brought on by last night’s episode. She spread her arms out and stretched.

  She crawled out of her warm, safe place and made her way to the bathroom before heading down the hall for breakfast.

  “Morning, sweetie,” her dad said. He stood over the stove holding a pan and swirling the melting butter around. “Making some French toast. You want some?”

  “Sure.”

  She grabbed a seat at the kitchen table. She could see her mother smoking on the front porch. She remembered how her mother would call it “going out for a puffy” when she was little. She always thought it sounded like something fun. Watching her through the window, Michele wondered what her mother thought about while she was out there. Was she as miserable as she seemed most times? Did she think about getting away, starting a new life with a new daughter, maybe a baby boy? A new husband? The thought erased the good morning buzz she had going.

  “Do you want to talk about last night?”

  She turned to her dad as the front door opened.

  “I had a dream…I guess it was still with me when I woke up.” She wanted to tell him, but she knew no one believed her. Not about how Greg was taken, and certainly not about how he returned with glowing green eyes outside her window last night.

  “Seemed pretty real, huh?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  Her mother came into the room, walked over to her and pet the top of her head. She could smell the horrible stench of cigarettes wafting off her hand. She briefly wondered if the smell would stick to her hair.

  “It was probably from that nasty movie you and Laura were watching. That kind of violence sticks in your brain, you know.”

  Her mother faced her father as she went to the coffee pot to refill a mug. “I thought I told you I didn’t want her watching those kinds of movies?”

  “Yes, dear. You did.”

  Her dad scowled. “I reminded her before I left.”

  “And where did you run off to for so long? Leaving two girls alone like that after what’s happened around here?”

  “Come on, Brenda. They’ve been fine plenty of times--”

  “Well, this isn’t like all the other times, is it? Until the sheriff figures out what’s happened…” her mother shot a quick glance at her before averting her eyes and returning her attention to her husband. “I don’t want Michele or her cousin left unsupervised. Is that clear?”

  “Jeez, mom, we’re not babies.”

  “Says the girl who needed her father to rescue her from a bad dream?”

  She was as wicked as she was right. Michele wanted to tell her it wasn’t a bad dream. Greg had been there, staring at her through the window with those strange glowing eyes.

  “That’s what I thought,” her mother said. “Both of you need to act more cautiously. I’m going to shower. Then I’ve got some errands to run.”

  Michele watched her mother disappear from the room. Her dad flipped the toast from the pan onto a plate and slid it on the table with a wink.

  Her mother had a way of silencing any room she walked into, even after she left, like her shadow lingered long enough to make you think before speaking.

  “I’m thinking about heading to Portland, maybe do a little vinyl shopping. What do you say?”

  “Since I’m not old enough to stay home--”

  “Michele.”

  “Sure, dad. A road trip sounds fun.”

  “I’ll let your mother know. We’ll head out in an hour or so. I’m gonna mow the lawn and grab a shower first. Sound good?”

  He looked back.

  She nodded with a mouthful of French toast and syrup.

  Chapter Eight

  "HELP! SOMEBODY, HELP ME!”

  Clint woke up to something that couldn’t possibly be happening. Somehow, Jennifer had opened her duct taped mouth and was screaming out to the world.

  He shot up from his seat, the lawn chair collapsing behind him with the rattle of tin on concrete.

  “No…no,” she whimpered, her blood shot eyes meeting his.

  Clint shook his head, placed the hand with the missing fingernails–he’d chewed off three more in his sleep–to her cracked and bloody lips, murdering her pleas for rescue.

  “What the hell’s all that racket about, boy? Who do you have down there? Clint?” his father said.

  The door knob at the top of the basement steps turned. He heard the click of the latch open. He had no idea how his father had managed to get out of his bed. The man could barely make it to the chair in the corner of his room. Clint cursed himself for his habitual underestimation of Jack Truman’s evil iron will.

  He grabbed the roll of duct tape sitting atop the rolling tray next to Jennifer’s head. He snapped off a fresh piece, and slapped it over the mess she’d made of the previous one.

  “What the fuck is this? What in the Sam Hell are you doing? Who is that?” Jack’s beady eyes made room for the storm clouds.

  Clint turned to find him halfway down the stairs, hunched over and taking everything in.

  He couldn’t recall the last time the sick buzzard attempted the basement stairs, but he was coming down now.

  “Who is she? Answer me, you little bastard,” his father said, reaching the concrete floor.

  Clint stood tight-lipped. He wasn’t sure what to do. Force the man back upstairs? Or tell him the truth?

  His father licked his lips as he stared at Jennifer. Clint knew what was going through the old man’s perverted mind.

  “Well, well, well.” Jack said. He placed a sallow hand on her knee and slid it up to the hem of her skirt. “You dirty little boy.” He craned his head back. Their eyes met. “So, you’re not all fag after all.”

  Clint’s hands clenched at his sides.

  “I can’t do the things I used to. Dick’s broken. But…”

  Clint glowered at his father as the sick man’s hand slid beneath the jean skirt. Jennifer shivered.

  He had to protect her.

  Clint remained silent as he stepped toward the stairs and picked up the Louisville Slugger from the floor. He started forward, gaze locked on the back of his father’s head.

  “Mmmm. My, my, what do we have--” Jack snapped back and saw Clint approaching. He pulled his hand from between Jennifer’s legs.

  “You ain’t never had the sack, Shirley, and you sure as shit ain’t about to man up now, you little faggot.”.

  Clint could smell the future corpse wafting off his father. Tightening his grip, he raised the ash bat, ready for the pitch.

  “You think this little kooch is all yours?”

  Jennifer raised her head from the table. Terror in her eyes.

  He locked eyes with his father.

  “Come on, pussy,” Jack rasped.

  Clint clenched his jaw and dropped the bat to the floor.

  “Hmm. Didn’t think so,” his father returned his hand to her leg, and ventured up her skirt, his awful wheeze mixed with the horrible sounds of his excitement.

  Clint thought of all the nights those hands and fingers had invaded him. He thought of all the dirty whispers, the sick promises his father always kept. He thought of Jennifer having to endure any of it.

  He felt the force bubble up within him, warmth bleeding from his eyes. As Jennifer whimpered and his father’s labored breaths rattled, Clint watched the remaining fingernails on his hands drip to the floor. His fingers began to
stretch toward the cement.

  “Don’t be shy…”

  “Don’t fucking touch her,” Clint said.

  His father turned.

  Clint finally got to see the old buzzard have his moment of pure fear.

  “Ugh….what’s…what’s …what are….”

  Clint grabbed his father’s head with both tentacles, wrapping them around and cinching them.

  Jack Truman screamed.

  Behind eyes that lit the room in a green haze, Clint smiled.

  “How does it feel? Being helpless.”

  His father’s jaundiced eyes rolled back in his head, his mouth covered by Clint’s new appendages. He could feel what little life remained in his father fleeting. He could suffocate him, but that didn’t seem like enough. He wanted to hurt him. He wanted to deliver a death blow.

  Clint tightened the tentacles around his father’s head. The old man’s hands trembled as he tried to raise them. Clint squeezed.

  A sick, wet crack, turned to a gritty squelch and snap as his father’s head was crushed in his grip. Blood and brain matter oozed over the tentacles. He pulled them away, letting the body drop. The head making one last splat as it hit the concrete floor.

  He raised the tentacles, gazing lovingly at them.

  As the tentacles retracted, his hands slowly taking form and returning to their natural position, he caught Jennifer’s wide-eyed gaze.

  The green light from his eyes intensified. A strange power surged within him. He felt himself being drawn to her.

  Jennifer’s eyes roll back into her head as she passed out.

  “He’s gone. I’m sorry he got to touch you, but he’s gone. I promise, I will make it all better. We have a special fate awaiting us.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead, leaving a trail of brown mucus. He wiped the film away with his thumb, and took the tape from her mouth.

  “I promise.”

  His right hand stretched and morphed, taking its tentacle form. Guided on its own, the tendril pulsed, oozing more of the brown fluid, and shot forward, slithering into her orifice.