Twisted.2014.12.16.2014 FOR REVIEW

by Michaelbrent Collings

  He only avoided her gaze when he was incredibly angry at her, or so shaken by something that he could only concentrate on one thing at a time.

  She didn't want to talk, but knew she couldn't just let him drive forever. Life would continue moving forward, whether they wanted it to or not.

  "The owners of the house said it was okay. They'll let us extend our stay, no problem."

  Blake nodded, an up-and-down of his chin that was barely more than a controlled twitch. He still didn't look at her.

  "How much?" he said.

  "Forty a day."

  "How'd you find this place?"

  "My sister used them once."

  "Heather stayed there?"

  "No. She didn't use this particular house, she used the service I used last night. It's a website that puts up empty houses for people to stay in short-term. Like vacations and things. Cheaper than a motel."

  Another barely-there nod. "Yeah." Still not happy, and Alyssa couldn't blame him. But she also couldn't tell if he was simply angry at the situation, or also at her.

  "Blake…."

  He still didn't look. And she chickened out. What was she going to do either way? If it was the situation that was upsetting him she could hardly go over it with Mal in the back. If it was her… she didn't think she'd respond well to that. Blake wasn't the only one at the end of his rope.

  She looked away from him. Twisted toward the backseat. Her body still ached, especially everything within a foot of her pelvis. For a few moments in the middle of everything she hadn't felt much pain – the blessed effects of adrenaline. And then this morning the pain had been consumed by a desire to get away from the infestation that had attacked their home.

  But now it was all back. With a vengeance.

  Still, she forced herself around. Looking behind her.

  Mal had his mouth on Ruthie's outfit. Blowing hard, trying to make a patch of red appear on the pink onesie with the heat of his breath.

  He spotted her turning and sat up quickly, putting on a smile that he no doubt thought was sincere and innocent. It was neither. It screamed, "CAUGHT!"

  But it was also hilarious. The first moment of normalcy in almost twelve hours.

  Usually Alyssa would have chewed him out for what he'd just done. Ruthie's onesie wasn't a toy, it was a failsafe to make sure her core temperature never rose or fell beyond acceptable levels. And normally Mal would have heard that, delivered verbatim in a stern speech.

  Now, though, Alyssa giggled. Mal's "Oh crap" smile was replaced by one with a bit more sincerity. He smiled, too.

  "Ready for an adventure?" she said.

  He nodded. Gave a thumbs up.

  Alyssa blew him a kiss then faced front again.

  Blake still didn't look at her.

  "You hear that, Ruthie?" whispered Mal behind her. "We're going to have an adventure!"

  Alyssa smiled.

  And then remembered that adventures all-too-often ended not in treasure, not in glory, but rather in the death of men and women who would never be found, and whose bones would rot, unburied and unhallowed into eternity.

  "An adventure!" Mal whispered once more. And Ruthie pooped loudly and Mal giggled and Alyssa felt her skin grow cold.

  DOORWAY UNCOVER'D

  The first man comes, the first man goes.

  Then more come. And like the first, they look in, then jump away.

  Next they begin "preparations." First they make the door as it is now: strips of heavy tape around all the edges, binding door to frame even more solidly than before.

  In front of it hangs a sheet of thick industrial plastic. Colorless but opaque, only the vaguest outline of the door can be seen through it. A smear to mark the doorknob.

  The sound still comes through unmolested. The noise of an army, a horde. A host, in so many senses of the word.

  The hall begins to darken. It is not dusk, no storm clouds have come. But outside, a different kind of plastic lowers over the entirety of the house. This plastic is neither colorless nor opaque. It is, instead, bright. Almost merry. The color of a circus or carnival.

  Or a warning. Something so garish it cannot be mistaken for anything but what it is.

  The plastic lowers, and as it falls it covers window after window. The inside of the house dims.

  And when the hall is dark – not completely dark, but dark enough – something happens.

  The sound is silenced. The unseen horde that jitters across the many surfaces of a boy's room suddenly ceases all movement.

  The transition from noise to stillness would be maddening if there were any to hear-then-not-hear it. Insanity can be found in the knife edge of certain changes. This is one of them.

  Silence. The instant stretches. Becomes a moment.

  The hallway darkens still further.

  Outside, the colorful plastic drops.

  And inside, behind the colorless plastic... movement. Not the horde. A single thing.

  The doorknob. The smear behind the plastic shifts slightly.

  There is a click. Then tearing that sounds like muscle ripping from bone as the door pulls away from the frame.

  The door opens. Still just a vague blur beyond a sheet of polyethylene whose only purposes – to reassure the workers that everything within can be confined, that this is just one more job to be done – are now proven to be lies.

  The doorway frames darkness. Not just absence of light, but of right. Something wrong stands behind the sheet. Evil, yes. But also something that should not be. Something that rubs at the fabric of reality, rubs it raw and eventually scrapes it away to nothing.

  The plastic sheet over the door flaps to the side.

  And the thing steps forth.

  VOLUNTARY MADNESS

  Blake pulled up to the rental house, but didn't look at it. Not yet.

  They had gotten lost twice on the way, relying on an old Thomas guide and a Google Maps printout. Life without GPS had once been the norm, but life post-GPS – too expensive GPS – was surprisingly difficult.

  One more bit of rug yanked out from under us. One more thing we allow ourselves to need, just in time to have it taken away.

  Blake looked at Alyssa. Suddenly wondered if she would leave, too. She was, without a doubt, his greatest and most valuable possession, the one thing he had given himself to without reservation – and he knew it was safe to do that. Safe to give himself to her, because she had given herself to him. They owned each other, they belonged to each other. That was what "being one" in a marriage really meant.

  That was why it hurt so badly when they fought: it wasn't because he felt bad about the fight, or because he was angry about losing the argument. It hurt because on those rare occasions when they screamed, on those even rarer occasions when one of them walked away – just took the keys and drove around the block to cool off – it wasn't an argument with another person, it was a division with the himself he had chosen to become. A strange kind of schizophrenia that was only available to married couples who were truly and deeply in love.

  Maybe that was all love was. Maybe it was a headlong flight into insanity. A voluntary committal to an institution where madness was the norm, where lunacy was the real thing that bound two people "'til death do us part."

  Still, he preferred madness with Alyssa to sanity with anyone else. It wasn't even a question. He preferred anything with her to anything with someone else.

  So when he looked at her as they pulled up to the curb and suddenly felt – knew – he was going to lose her…. It wasn't a loss of someone else. It was a loss of himself. It was a spiral into death, because how could he exist with half of himself – literally his better half – cut off and secreted away?

  "We're here," said Alyssa. She wasn't talking to him, really. But he pretended she was, and was glad that she spoke. Her voice was a rope that kept him from falling too deep into the bleak thoughts that sometimes dragged at him. That threatened him with memory and past and a hint of future that must be.


  (C'mere! Daddy's gonna play a game.)

  He glanced at Mal in the rearview mirror. The kid was asleep.

  (Don't you run from me, you little bastard! Little shit!)

  He closed his own eyes, then opened them and – finally – looked at the house.

  "How was this cheaper than a motel?" he said.

  Alyssa giggled. She sounded like a child, and he loved her for that. One of too many things to count. "Don't look a gift horse…," she began.

  He rolled his eyes. "Come on," he said. Trying to sound businesslike, serious. But still gawking at the place they were going to call home for the next three days.

  The rental house was a two-story affair. Gabled, with eaves that hung over a porch that surrounded the whole place like a white skirt flared out by a whirling dancer.

  The windows – at least at this time of morning – reflected the outside light. Not transparent, but almost white. Eyes once clear but now clouded by cataracts, dimmed by time.

  Roses climbed several trellises, irises surrounded the patio. Charming.

  At least during the day.

  Alyssa went for Ruthie while Blake went to get Mal. Rousing his son was harder than he thought it would be. And when Mal finally opened his eyes he pushed into the seat, scrambling to get away from Blake. Only the seatbelt kept him from leaping away; perhaps leaping completely out of the car.

  Then his eyes settled from the full moon of panic to the waxing crescent of gradual waking. He rubbed them. "Where…?"

  "We're here, bud," said Blake. In an appropriately deep voice he added, "The adventure begins!"

  Mal smiled. Then he was out of the car and up a bluestone path after his mother, who was already halfway to the house.

  Blake caught them –

  (Caught up to them, Blake. Big difference.)

  (Don't you run from me, you little bastard! Little shit!)

  – just as Alyssa found the keys where they were hidden under the pot of what looked like a bonsai tree.

  She put the key in the door. It slid home with that subtle grind of an old, well-used thing.

  The door swung open with a slight squeak. Hinges cared for, but ready for maintenance.

  The family walked in.

  MINUTES AND MUSIC

  Alyssa had to keep from gasping. It was hard. Then she decided it wouldn't hurt anything and did it.

  The inner décor matched the outside: old, well-kept, classy.

  To the right of the entry – which, unlike in their own home, actually was large enough to be termed a foyer – was the dining room. A beautiful table, big enough to seat twelve, sat in the middle. Dark wood, cherry or oak. Behind it was a matching buffet side table with silver tea setting. The silver was slightly tarnished. Purposefully so, she guessed, since it didn't seem trashy or unkempt. It just added to the overall sense of classy antiquity.

  A crystal chandelier hung over all of it, catching the sun and breaking it into rainbow shards that it then cast all over the room.

  To the left of the entry was a living room. Or perhaps in a place like this it was actually a parlor. Someplace people sat and talked and "entertained."

  Baby grand piano. Black, with gold lettering, gold hinges, gold accents on the wheels. Gilded chairs dating to an age that somehow managed to be at once more genteel and more violent.

  Several tables. On them sat matching lamps. The lamps were clearly expensive, but these Alyssa did not care for. They sported red glass shades, and the glass seemed to snatch the light in the room, then return it bathed in blood.

  And directly in front of the door and the family: stairs. Sweeping, a grand semi-circle of a craftsmanship generally lost in the houses of today. Back home Alyssa knew exactly which of the treads would creak on her staircase, which would sigh and groan as she passed over them as though exhausted by the work they did.

  These, though… she could tell by looking at them that they would bear their burdens in solemn silence for a long time. Maybe forever.

  Over it all was a sound. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

  A grandfather clock stood next to the stairs. Well over two meters tall, it was elegant and at the same time somehow forbidding. The face looked like ivory, dark numbers scrolled at the traditional points, except for at the midnight position. There, a moon dial showed a picture of a moon with a painted face.

  The face reminded Alyssa of something. Someone. She didn’t know which, and honestly didn't care to. It –

  (scared her terrified her run Alyssa get out get out!)

  – made her feel uncomfortable. She looked away.

  Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

  The sound of a life counting down.

  What made you think that, Lyss?

  She glanced at Ruthie. Asleep in her arms. Unworried about anything. Though soon she'd want to feed. They all would.

  Beside the clock, atop a table that was almost hidden behind it, was a small wood box. A metal wheel with tiny pin-like extrusions could barely be seen over the top of it. Alyssa didn't recognize it at first, then realized it was a music box. Not one of the cheap things that kids got for birthdays, with a plastic ballerina and a hidden compartment for childhood "treasures." This was a deluxe antique, something people used to dance to when no orchestra was available.

  For some reason, the music box made her even more uncomfortable than the clock

  Mal was rubbernecking, eyes going from room to room to stairs. "Cool," he said.

  "Remember, it's not ours," said Alyssa. She didn't even think about it. Just automatic entry into "Mommy Mode." "So be careful what you touch, okay?"

  "But you can have whichever room you want," said Blake.

  Mal started to run, then stopped so fast it was just a lurch. "Can't I sleep with you guys?"

  Blake nodded and knelt next to Mal. "If you want to."

  Mal nodded, too, and Alyssa could see what her little boy was thinking. She wanted to shout to him, to scream, "Just sleep in our room, stay with us! Now isn't the time to be a big boy!"

  But she knew Mal. Knew that saying such a thing would just end up making him feel bad later. Like he had failed in some class he was taking, some course of which only he knew.

  "I'll find my own room," he finally said. "It's what you'd do, right, Dad?"

  Blake smiled. The smile was forced, and Alyssa knew he wanted Mal with them as much as she did.

  And in this installment of Parenting 101, we will learn how to let the child do things that absolutely kill you, because they will be good for him. Remember: "parenting" is just another way of spelling "gradual suicide"!

  Blake tousled Mal's hair. "I'll get the luggage." He took a few steps to the door, then turned. "You think you're strong enough to lift some of it, bud?"

  Mal made a muscle. "Check this out!"

  Blake felt it. Nodded. "Let's go."

  They went out.

  Alyssa stayed.

  Tick-tock, tick-tock.

  The sound of life counting down. Falling away.

  The sound of minutes lost, and never to be found again.

  Tick-tock.

  APPLE TO SONG

  The new place was definitely cool. It had lots of old stuff, a neat-o piano, and the living room looked like it belonged in a castle or some house where if you opened the right door you'd fall right into a magical land where you were the hero and guaranteed to vanquish the bad guys.

  "Vanquish" was also cool. Mal had learned the word the week before Ruthie came, and when he used it, it made him cool, too.

  Lots of coolness. Plenty to go around.

  But at the same time, there was also a little bit of not-cool. A little bit of dark, a little bit of danger.

  The clock was creepy. The noise it made could be heard everywhere through the house, and Mal wondered what kind of people needed to know what time it was so badly that they put in a clock that reminded them of every passing second.

  Also, he definitely got a bad feeling from the box thingy behind the clock. Mommy
said it was a music box, and told him people used to dance to it. She offered to see if it worked.

  He told her no. Reminded her that this wasn't their house. She said he was "a great kid" and "an example," and he didn't tell her it had nothing to do with being good.

  He just didn't want her to touch it.

  Just like he wouldn't want her to touch a rattlesnake, or a bottle of acid, or a nuclear bomb. Some things were bad. You didn't touch bad things.

  But the rest of the house was pretty cool. And the fact that it had televisions and working bathrooms made it even cooler. For a second when he saw the oldness of it he was worried he'd be running to one of those wood buildings with a moon carved on the door every time he had to poop. Worse, he was worried he'd have to sit around listening to the radio or reading twenty-four/seven.

  But apparently the owners of the place appreciated old stuff and wanted the good parts of new stuff, too. There were a couple flat screens, a few computers tucked away in some corners here and there, and the bathrooms all looked like they had new-type toilets that flushed.

  Mommy led him into the back of the house, into the kitchen. She looked pretty impressed with the place, too.

  "You like it?" she said.

  "Yeah!"

  The kitchen was the same as the rest of the house. Old, but cool. The walls were a happy orange color. A white table that looked like it Old MacDonald probably ate breakfast at it sat in the middle of the room. Pots and pans hung from a bunch of hooks over a stove that stood on actual metal legs carved like the feet of a lion or a tiger. A coat rack full of cozy coats hung on the wall near the door to the hall.

  The clock-sound bounced around in here, tick-tock, tick-tock. It made Mal's stomach drop a little, made his privates feel like they were sucking up inside him. It was not a nice feeling.

  "Check this out!"

  Mommy was pointing at the fridge. It was a gross green color that Mal guessed was probably popular a hundred years ago. But on it someone had taped a big piece of paper that said, "Help Yourself!"