Twisted.2014.12.16.2014 FOR REVIEW

by Michaelbrent Collings

  "It's okay, bud," said Blake. "They're stuck in there."

  And in one of those acts of cruelty that only an uncaring universe can bring off with such perfect timing, right then they heard it. The noise. The things.

  Scratch, scratch, scratch.

  She could practically see them in her mind. Their snake-bodies writhing over each other, profaning the sacred space of a little boy's room, sullying his toys, his clothes, his bed.

  "Safe," repeated Blake. Then under his breath he added, "For now."

  Alyssa thought he meant it to be heard only by him. Either that or meant it as a joke. Either way, he failed. The words sounded deadly serious, and they wrapped the room in a sense of doom.

  "Not in front of Mal," she whispered. She nearly bit off each word, anger at Blake's sudden selfishness gritting her teeth, clenching her jaw.

  She put more hydrogen peroxide on Blake's foot, and this time she failed to dab it. She jabbed it at him.

  He hissed again. "Sorry," he snapped. "I guess I get irritable when my feet feel like I stuck them in a damn furnace!"

  Another cruel universe-joke: the things fell silent. Like Blake's anger hushed them. A lullaby for the wicked.

  Mal stepped back. Away from his father. From his daddy.

  Blake's face changed instantly. He knew he had gone too far, and Alyssa knew he was thinking what he always thought when he yelled or lost his temper or did anything else that any normal parent did at least a thousand times a day.

  He was worried about his father.

  She ached to hold him and tell him it was all right; that if anyone had earned the right to be short-tempered, it was him.

  But she couldn't. Just like she hadn't been able to a few moments ago. Because that would be admitting the seriousness of the problem in front of a terrified little boy.

  Welcome to Parenting 101, in which we will learn how to constantly feel like one person in the family is getting emotionally screwed for the benefit of another.

  Blake got up. He grunted slightly as he put his weight on his feet, but other than that there was no sign of his pain. He smiled and walked toward Mal. Slowly. A smile on his face.

  "Sorry I got mad, bud. Just tired. Hurty feet." He shrugged.

  Mal nodded. Still wearing that long stare. But it focused a bit when Blake put a hand on his shoulder. "Why don't you lay down, bud?" He gestured at the couch.

  Mal shook his head.

  "You're safe," said Blake. "We'll be right here. All of us." He looked at Alyssa with his eyebrows reaching for his hairline in an exaggerated question. She nodded. "See? We'll all be right here."

  Mal remained motionless for a long time. He looked like a statue. Alyssa wanted to run to him, but held back. She was pretty sure he was still teetering on the brink of some precipice. Too much stimulus – good or bad – could push him over the edge.

  Parenting 101, Lesson Two: in which we learn that being a mommy sometimes means standing back and letting Daddy do the comforting. Even though that will make you feel like your heart is being shoved in the garbage disposal.

  And it was the right choice. Mal went slowly to the couch. Sank down. Blake limped to him and covered him with an afghan as Mal curled into a tiny ball. So small-seeming. So frail.

  "No worries, Mal. Sleep," said Blake. "I'm here." He kissed their boy.

  "What about my toys?" asked Mal.

  Blake's back was to her, but Alyssa could sense his grin. "Don't you worry about that. I'm sure G.I. Joe will kill a few of those things for us."

  Mal smiled. He closed his eyes. They popped open again almost instantly, as though to make sure Daddy was still there.

  They closed. This time didn't open.

  The noise sounded.

  Rasping.

  Creaking.

  Alyssa looked at Mal. His eyes stayed closed. He must already be asleep.

  But she knew she wouldn't sleep. Not tonight.

  Maybe not ever again.

  DECISIONS, DECISIONS

  They waited long enough to make sure Mal was asleep.

  No, not just asleep, but out.

  There was a difference, one that Blake had learned a lot slower than Alyssa. But he had caught on eventually.

  Asleep: eyes closed, even breathing. Able to pop up instantly, run out, and interrupt whatever happened to be going on.

  Out: eyes closed, even breathing. Not likely to get up for the next six to ten hours. Able to sleep through screaming, loud movies, and thermonuclear attacks.

  Blake had learned the definition of "asleep" when he put Mal down one night. He sang extra songs, gave kisses, and waited for the boy to get nice and motionless before sneaking silently out to meet Alyssa in their room.

  Alyssa was wearing very little. And soon nothing at all.

  Another definition of asleep: putting your three-year-old down, feeling your wife's hands all over you, wondering where the third hand (on your ankle, thank goodness!) had come from. Looking down to see a pair of blue eyes peeping over the top of the mattress and hearing a tiny voice saying, "Daddy, what are you doing to Mommy?"

  After that, out was critical. So was a well-locked door.

  Tonight, Blake was on "Mal Watch," Alyssa took "Ruthie Duty." They didn't have to speak about the division, they just took positions instinctively. After just over a decade of marriage – good marriage – you just knew.

  Alyssa was at his shoulder in seconds. "She's down for a while."

  She whispered so quietly he could barely hear her, but somehow Mal seemed to sense the words. He sighed and shifted under the afghan.

  Blake tensed. Felt Alyssa do the same.

  Then Mal snored. The most telling sign of "out"-ness.

  Blake nodded, and Alyssa walked stiffly to the kitchen door. He hobbled through behind her.

  Quite the pair we are.

  They left the door open, not just so they could see the kids, but so Mal would easily see them if they awoke. He'd never forgive them if he came to and couldn't find the family that had promised their presence.

  Once in the kitchen, Blake nodded to Alyssa. She nodded back, again understanding his unspoken question: Mind if I sit down? Some might have thought it an unnecessary question, but it was important to him. Being raised by a monster had given him the need to turn himself into what he saw as the thing most distant: a gentleman. And gentlemen didn't sit while their recently-pregnant wives stood. Not without a by-your-leave.

  She nodded: Of course.

  He went to the table and slumped into a chair. The kitchen was a kitchen/dining room, which he knew some people thought was terribly gauche. He liked it, though. Liked seeing where the food he ate had been made. Liked being able to leap up and just grab something forgotten. It struck him as cozy. The essence of family.

  He also liked it – he had to admit – when Alyssa went to the refrigerator and bent over to get something. Like now.

  He didn't know if that made him a tactless pig or not. On the one hand, he knew plenty of men who seemed almost proud of the fact that they barely paid attention to their wives' bodies. They preferred porn.

  Blake was proud of the fact that after a decade Alyssa still drove him crazy physically. But he felt like a bit of a cad thinking that way right after she'd had a baby, even though he knew he would never act on the impulse until she signaled she was ready.

  Finally he shrugged his mental shoulders and decided there were more important things to think about.

  Like the python-sized bugs infesting our house.

  Alyssa stood up holding two beers. Let the fridge door fall shut behind her. "Beer?" she said.

  "If ever there was a night…," he replied, and held out his hand.

  She opened them both. Handed him one. Blake's right eyebrow cocked.

  "I thought they were both for me. You're nursing."

  Alyssa shook her head. She looked very tired. Blake felt a pang of guilt. Wondered for the millionth time if she wouldn't have been better off without him.

&nbs
p; "Dr. Blake said I could have a half once in a while. Tonight definitely qualifies as 'in a while.'"

  She took a swig, looking both relieved at the drink and a little defiant. The beer was a sign of how distressed she was: she was ultra-careful about what she ate and drank while nursing. Blake had never even seen her drink a caffeinated soda when she was nursing Mal.

  The sound crept in through the other door: the door that led not to the living room but the hall.

  Scratch-scratch, scratch-scritch….

  Alyssa moved to the hall door. Nearly slammed it shut. She spun and leaned against it, her arms across her chest. Not like she was relaxing, but more as though she was getting ready to brace against the door and keep something out.

  She was still holding the beer. Some of the liquid spilled on the t-shirt she was wearing in bed before the nightmare began. She didn't notice.

  "We have to leave," she said.

  Blake felt hypnotized by the sound of the things beyond the door – doors. The sound of darkness, of creeping things. Perhaps of a long-rotted hand, reaching for him once more.

  Gradually her words sank in. He shrank back. As though he could dodge what she had already said.

  "How? We can barely afford the mortgage here, the bank account is tapped. How are we going to afford a motel for however long it takes us to fix this –?"

  "Us?" Alyssa shook her head. More beer spilled. "This is not a job for us. This is nothing we can handle."

  Blake felt his face twist. Twist and twist into a tighter and tighter knot. They couldn't. They didn't have the money. He couldn't afford to miss the work.

  And she was right.

  "Our insurance is never going to cover –" He began, but didn't expect to finish. Just a last straw at which to grasp.

  And she cut it off. Not with razor-sharp logic, but with the much sharper statement that was, really, all they had left. A statement of faith.

  "We'll find a way."

  She smiled.

  He could tell she didn't believe it.

  Neither did he.

  Behind her, behind the doors, the many legs crawled, the darkness rippled, the dead man reached out in his mind.

  ON THE RUN

  Bugs.

  Mal kept waking up to them. Crawling on his feet and his hands and his legs. That wasn't the worst, though. It wasn't even the tickle-feeling of them on his face, or the fact that every time he woke up he had to pull at his waistband and make sure nothing had crawled into his underwear and was curled around his you-know-what.

  That's what he woke up to.

  But the thing that actually woke him up was Daddy.

  In his dreams Daddy was chasing him. Running after him, following him with this angry face and saying things that were Very Bad Words.

  Daddy kept catching him. No matter how fast Mal ran, Daddy always caught him. He reached out, and grabbed him, and it hurt. Oh it hurt so bad, so bad. It felt like he was getting his arm pinched right off and he looked and he started to cry because it wasn't Daddy's hand it was someone else's, and that hand only had three fingers that grabbed tighter and tighter and pinched harder and harder until his arm got bloody.

  And when Mal looked up to ask Daddy what he was doing, he never could. Because when he looked up, Daddy's face was gone. Not like it was different, or maybe like a different person was there the same way a different hand was on Daddy's wrist. Daddy's face was totally gone. Just a hole where Daddy's face should be, and he could see right through it into his brain.

  But there was no brain to see. There were bugs. Bugs, and behind it… something scarier than the bugs, scarier than Daddy, scarier even than that three-fingered hand that belonged to someone else.

  Scarier than all of it.

  Mal thought he saw another face. A face inside Daddy's head. A thing inside, gray and dead and looking out.

  That woke him up. Daddy chased him, Daddy caught him. A dead thing saw him.

  And he woke up to the feeling of bugs on his body, crawling all over him, even in his underwear.

  He didn't sleep well.

  But when it was morning (finally!) Mommy said they were leaving and she got him out of the house before he even had breakfast. He asked what they were going to eat, but only because he thought he was supposed to ask. He really didn't care. He didn't think he could eat with that weird noise in the hall.

  He walked past the hall, once. He had to pee.

  There was a man, standing by the door to Mal's room. The man's back was to Mal, and for a crazy second he wondered if the man was the person with the three fingers, come right out of his dream to kill him or maybe drown him in bugs.

  Or, worst of all, shove him in that hole in Daddy's face and make him meet whatever monster lived there.

  But the man turned around and it was just a guy. A man with a big tummy and gray whiskers and almost no hair on his head. He had a little sign sewed onto his shirt that said, "TOMMY."

  Tommy waved at Mal, but he looked like he was thinking about something else. Something bad.

  Mal knew what. He knew that this man had looked. Looked in the room.

  Mal went to pee. He had to poop, kinda, but he wasn't about to sit down on the toilet. What if the bugs crawled out of it and up his bottom? If that happened he would die. No one, not even Mommy or Daddy, could save him from that.

  When he got done, Mommy was waiting outside the bathroom with a little bag and a change of clothes. She looked away while he put the new clothes on, then took him to the living room. Ruthie was there, and Mommy asked him to hold his bag, the diaper bag, and another little backpack while she picked up Ruthie and the folded up playpen.

  "What're we doing?" he asked.

  "We're going for a trip, honey."

  He almost shouted for joy. But he didn't. He didn't even smile. Not in this place. Not now. Maybe not ever again.

  They went outside. There was a van in front of the house, a brown one. It said, "PEST IN PEACE" on the side next to a drawing of dead bee with a super-big stinger and Xs for eyes. Mal smiled – safe to do now they were outside the house – at the joke. Mommy had been teaching him puns and things like that. He liked the joke on the van.

  Daddy was standing in front of the house with Tommy the fat man, and they argued while Mommy and Ruthie and Mal went to the car in the driveway.

  "Three days?" shouted Daddy. "You said one, maybe two!"

  Tommy got a hard look on his face. "That was before I saw the room."

  Mommy swung the back door open and put Ruthie in her car seat. Mal wondered where they were going. He also wondered if he would have a chance to make Ruthie's onesie change color. He thought that was awesomely cool to breathe on her chest and watch it change, but it made Mommy mad so he only did it when she wasn't looking and wouldn't worry.

  Daddy sounded worried now. "Can't you… I don't know… cut a corner or two?"

  Mal glanced over and saw the older man's face get tough for a second. "Look, Mr. Douglas, I've got my own problems, you know? I got three guys out with fevers, I got a computer that hates me. Hell, someone even stole one of our tents a few weeks ago." Then he took a breath. His hand went over his face a few times, like he was wiping his mad away. When he stopped he looked less angry, but more tired. "I've already cut it to the bare minimum for you. We're going to saturate your house with phosphine" (that was a word Mal filed away to ask Mommy about) "so do you want to come home to everyone puking and explosive gas pooled on your floors?"

  "Dammit!"

  All Mal's muscles got jerky for a second when Daddy screamed. He felt like he was in the dream.

  "Is Daddy mad?" he whispered to Mommy. When he looked at her she was staring at Daddy like she was worried about that, too.

  But she smiled and shook her head. "No, honey. He's just worried and scared. He'll be fine." She hugged him. Then she clicked the last clicker on Ruthie's seatbelts and said, "Why don't you hop in the other side?"

  He did. Ruthie was in the middle, and when Mommy went to her
side to get in he puffed on her. That spot on her onesie turned red.

  Mommy and Daddy said Ruthie wouldn't smile for a while, or that if she looked like she was smiling it would really just be her farting.

  Well, she must be farting a lot, because that looks like a smile to me!

  He put his finger in her little hand. She had a super-strong grip. He smiled at her. And for sure he wasn't farting. It was a real smile. She was a cool sister.

  Her grip got tighter. Like a little monkey holding onto a tree.

  Or like Daddy and his three fingers holding you until you bleed.

  Mal's smile went away.

  He wondered if they were leaving the monsters behind, or just taking them to a new place with them.

  Daddy got in the car.

  ADVENTURERS AWAY

  Alyssa was on her cell phone, and so glad they had decided to keep it.

  A few years ago it had been a non-question. It was part of life, the same as their cars, their house, their internet connection.

  Business was great. Lots of clients coming to Blake. A new house.

  Then business dried up. One of the cars turned into a money pit and ended up as a piece of modern art at some junkyard.

  The other one was repo'd.

  Now they had a junker, given to them by a friend who was about to move and who decided they needed it more than his sixteen-year-old.

  They were barely hanging onto the house.

  And just last month they had been talking about cancelling their remaining cell subscription. The only thing that kept it from happening was Blake. He insisted he wanted her to have a cell, at least while the baby was young. He wasn't worried about himself, but he wanted something for her in case "anything happened."

  And it looked like they were well on their way to a heaping plateful of "anything."

  "Okay," she said. "Thank you. Thank you so much." She hung up. Looked at Blake. He didn't even glance at her, which was a bad sign. When they were dating and then first married he had almost crashed a few times, looking at her too often and too long. And even after so many years he always looked at her. Let her know that he was listening, that she mattered.