by Paul Sating
It was time to make a decision. Sleep or slip out of the apartment and walk around the dark neighborhood? It was way too early to go to bed. He could go see Tyler but Kyle wanted to stay in his room, away from the world, and look at some naked women.
His lustful adrenaline wouldn’t allow him to sleep now anyway so, the decision confirmed, Tyler was going to get an unannounced visitor.
Shoes tied, Kyle approached his bedroom door with apprehension. Pressing his ear to it, he listened. The apartment was silent. They’re probably having a fuck fest. Those awkward moments almost always followed the big fights. They were so gross.
It was time to take a chance, to risk the awkward to escape the suffocating. He cranked down the door handle, listening as each spring creaked. It was ridiculous to think they could hear him, but he winced with each metallic crackle just the same.
Devoid of any streetlight, the hallway was a blanket of black.
The air smelled different. It popped with unease.
Something was wrong.
Step-by-step, Kyle worked his way down the hall without reaching out to feel the walls, hundreds of late-night parties taught him how to navigate a dark apartment. The night was soundless as if the world forgot how to breathe. Even the street noise was sucked into the black void.
The school’s empty library was louder than the apartment.
Kyle stopped at the archway where the hallway opened to the small area that contained both the living room and the kitchen. The combined space was smaller than his bedroom in the old house in the suburbs.
He hated this place.
Something moved in the blanket of black.
In that instant, he didn’t want to be there anymore, not because of his parents but because of the wicked scent in the air. It announced itself without making an appearance. He didn’t need to see it, but he needed to get away. Far away.
Kyle took a cautious step forward.
And the sound approached.
At first, he thought it was one of the resident rats finally clawing its way through the thin walls and into their dump of a home. Their slight movement was part of life here. The nasty rodents were all over the apartment complex, scratching at everything and scurrying inside the walls every single night. But he’d never heard them scratching so clearly. They could be anywhere.
Kyle choked back the image of stepping onto a linoleum floor filled with hundreds of diseased rodents.
This was the way to the front door. It didn’t matter if his parents were done fighting, it would start up again after they finished this round of sex. This was his one chance to leave, and he wasn’t going to waste it.
Closing his eyes, Kyle readied himself to hear the squeal of a rat. A squeal was better than feeling one — or more — scurry over his foot. He stepped —
— on the cool, cracked linoleum floor. No rats.
A quick sigh of relief washed over him.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Something softer. The wisping of clothes?
Closer now. The chipped countertop corner signaled his arrival in the kitchen. The sound was almost at his feet.
Kyle stepped.
In the blackness, something moved.
Something big.
Here, it sounded … wet.
Kyle felt along the counters, looking for the drawer where they kept the rolling pin. The neighbor’s dog might have broken in again. It happened a lot. The front door didn’t always catch, especially when one, or both, drunk parents came home too wasted to remember to close it properly. Dad always blamed the landlord for never bothering to come around and fix things. Mom always blamed Dad.
Both of them failed at life. A lot. Failure came naturally to this family.
A rolling pin would scare the stupid dog, hurt it a little maybe. Kyle didn’t want to stab it, just give it a good whack and send it on its way out to the dump of an apartment next door, where its owners wasted life by shooting up while waiting for their next check from the government.
Kyle’s hand paused on the drawer. If the contents moved when he opened it his parents would hear him. Even if they weren’t boning, his mother was sloppy drunk. She’d want to hang all over him and cry about how bad everything was, and how she’s not appreciated and loved. He didn’t have time for her drama.
If the thing moving in the dark was the damn dog, he’d kick it. Give it a good scare. It was chicken shit anyway; a swift kick in the ribs and it would howl all the way back home.
Slurping. In front of him, near his feet.
The dog. It must have knocked the garbage over again.
He didn’t have time to clean even more shit up.
The kitchen stunk like—
Kyle took another tentative step. His foot jammed into something solid and unmovable. He toppled forward, crashing into the plastic trashcan. It kicked out away from him and bounced against the wall. The lid popped off and tumbled away. The still-warm and wet remains of their Hamburger Helper dinner landed on the back of his head.
Forget kicking it, now he wanted to kill that damned dog.
All he wanted to do was get out of the house.
He was going to have to explain this mess to two drunk parents when they found him with half a pan of cheaply-seasoned hamburger meat running down the back of his neck.
Kyle growled and rolled over.
And froze.
Thwack.
Thump.
Thwack.
The sound was inches away from his feet.
Kyle pushed his back against the wall, away from the sound. Underneath the thumping, a child-like laugh chilled his skin. It held a deepness that only came after passing puberty and spending the intervening decades abusing your throat.
There was no neighbor’s dog in the apartment. That was the tight giggle of an adult. It was low, almost inaudible under the sound of his heavy breaths.
Kyle’s hands shook all on their own.
His palms flat, he felt the floor around him. The garbage can’s contents everywhere. Plastic wrappers. Small cardboard containers. Something soft and squishy. Then, something firmer. Metal. It was thin and slightly bent. Kyle wrapped his hand around it, careful to not slice his fingers open. It was circular. The lid of a can. He cupped it against his palm. Whoever was in the kitchen was going to get a nasty surprise if they came at him. He might slice his hand open in the process, but they weren’t going to do anything to him without getting a dose of pain first. The lid would do some serious damage.
Thwack.
Scratch.
Thump. Scratch.
Giggle.
Thwack.
Scratch.
Thump. Scratch. Scratch. Giggle.
Kyle’s heart raced. His throat throbbed.
He pressed back against the wall. It didn’t offer an escape, but he felt a lot better knowing nothing could sneak up behind him.
Kyle peered into the darkness. The thing moved. Scurried like a rat. The animalistic fluidity of its movements provided a rich soundscape. Normal people didn’t move like that.
He had to get out. Fuck his parents and their stupid shit. They could fend for themselves.
Kyle inched himself up, careful to keep the wall to his back. He held the lid up like he was about to throw a baseball. It felt ridiculous, but it was all he had. And having something was better than having nothing at all to defend against whatever moved in the darkness.
The scratching ceased. Underneath the absence of noise, Kyle heard something else.
Deep, heavy breathing. The type of breathing people did after sprinting further than they were physically able. The type of breathing he heard animals in documentaries make when watching them tear a carcass apart. It was not the type of breathing you ever heard in a shit-hole apartment in the middle of a shithole city, occupied by shitty people.
He swallowed the dry lump in his throat.
At that instant, the lights flickered back to life. Kyle ignored the beep
ing of reanimated appliances, clocks, and the neighbor’s television that suddenly blared to life through the thin walls. He was too mortified by what he was looking at to care about the rebirth of the electronic world.
There, in the middle of the kitchen floor, splayed out in absent glory, was his father. Bill laid on his back, his arms over his head and one leg cocked at an awkward angle. Bill’s dead eyes stared up at the cracked paint on the ceiling.
Kyle forgot to breathe.
A carving knife jutted from the middle of his sternum, piercing the shredded sea of red polyester of his Santa Claus outfit. Kneeling next to his father’s corpse, Brenda dug between the shredded cloth and into Bill’s chest cavity, pulling out bloody organs like a kid looking through her Halloween basket.
She giggled as she reached under Bill’s rib cage, fingering something that might have been a lung.
She’s fucking giggling.
“Mom?” Kyle croaked.
Brenda didn’t respond. She continued searching until she pulled out a pale flesh tube covered in blood and slime. A piece of it broke away and plopped on the thick, black costume belt.
“Mom?” Kyle’s voice quivered as the reality of what was unfolding screamed through his numbed brain.
Brenda rocked back and forth on her knees, shaking her head. Her normally wispy brown hair lanced the air in red clumps. Blood and small chunks of tissue smeared her forehead. Brenda reached out and wrapped her fingers around the carving knife handle, yanking it from Bill’s chest. Kyle jumped when his father’s body jerked.
“He’s …,” Brenda rocked back and forth as she searched for what she wanted to say, “he’s not going to hurt me anymore, Kyle. No more.”
What was she doing? What had she done?
This couldn’t be real, it couldn’t be.
“He’s not going to hurt me anymore,” Brenda repeated in slow, measured grunts. With each word, she slammed the carving knife back into Bill’s chest. Blood splattered upward at every thrust, disappearing into the red of the Santa jacket. Kyle was almost thankful.
Thwack.
Thwack.
Thwack.
Over and over, she thrust the blade deep. Kyle vomited on the floor before he realized that his stomach was churning.
“You won’t be like him will you, honey?” Brenda rocked back and forth stabbing over and over, without looking up at her son. “You’ll be a good boy. Promise me you’ll always be a good boy.”
Thwack.
Thwack.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
He gasped for breath that wouldn’t come.
Over and over, each time harder than the time before, Brenda impaled the knife. “Always promise me that you’ll treat women right.”
She looked happy. The happiest she’d ever looked. The smile she wore walked the invisible line between madness and release.
“Mom … stop … please,” Kyle begged. His father’s body rocked with each piercing blow.
But she didn’t.
She wouldn’t, or couldn’t.
Her giggle turned into a cackle, growing in volume and fervor. He had to go, go now before his mother’s madness reminded her of the times Kyle hurt her.
He scrambled out of the kitchen and into the small living room. Fire exploded in his thigh when he crashed into the end table. He lunged for the front door. The loose handle spun in his grip and Kyle panicked. If the latch was broken inside the door he’d be stuck in this apartment with a madwoman.
But it was just loose, a piece of crap, like everything else in his world.
Finally, the latch released and he yanked the door open, sprinting out into the constricted hallway. Kyle didn’t wait to scream for help from any of his uncaring neighbors. They wouldn’t respond and it would only draw the madwoman’s attention. As he descended the rickety steps, Brenda’s cackling faded into the background of his life.
She was finally happy.
And Santa Claus was dead.
END
Roasting On An Open Fire
“Burn, motherfucker, burn,” DeMarco Morales laughed.
Chikae shook his head at the idiot who also happened to also be his best friend. How DeMarco survived life was still a mystery to Chikae. DeMarco was a good guy, but he was still an idiot. “Back the fuck off before you burn yourself alive,” Chikae laughed.
Dozens of times over their teenage years, Chikae watched DeMarco set things on fire. DeMarco was a bit of a pyromaniac. Everyone knew that. Most people grew out of the stupid things they did as teenagers, but not DeMarco. DeMarco would be a mental teenager for the rest of his life.
But in his own way, Chikae loved his friend. DeMarco embraced life every day he breathed. He was irresponsible and juvenile, but his personality provided a good balance to Chikae’s own structured and careful approach to existing. That balance had outlasted the years since graduation and the exodus of friends from DeMarco’s circle. Where the world dulled, DeMarco still held onto its promises of prosperity. Where Chikae settled down in a cubicle kingdom, DeMarco hopped from job to job, claiming he was still trying to find his future. The future where he would make $1 million a year and live in all the splendor it could provide. It was naive, of course, but refreshing. Part of Chikae believed that was why he enjoyed spending so much time around DeMarco, even all these years later, when most people distanced themselves. If it bothered DeMarco that so many of their childhood friends had turned away, he never showed it. But there was something there, something hidden, repressed. Something unhealthy that DeMarco hadn’t dealt with. And that was one of the reasons why Chikae overlooked a lot of the dumb things that DeMarco did.
Like setting a trashcan filled with garbage on fire.
DeMarco backed away as the flames jumped into the sky, his gaze locked on their weaving dance. Chikae understood it, there was a beauty to the way fire destroyed. But there was a difference between appreciation and reverence.
“It’s beautiful, bro, isn’t it?” DeMarco uttered.
It was, but Chikae didn’t want to encourage him.
“I mean, look at it,” he pointed at the blazing trashcan. “The way it consumes. That’s pretty fucking cool.”
"Yeah, man, it’s cool,” Chikae replied. “Just back up a little more, will you? You’re making me nervous.”
DeMarco laughed. “Everything makes you nervous, bro.”
Chikae avoided responding by taking a small hit of the pipe. It was amazing, DeMarco always knew where to get the best pot. One of the benefits of running in bad circles, Chikae imagined.
Chikae blew the cloud out into the warm night. The middle of Maryland was a moderate existence all year long. None of the insufferable heat of the South, none of that horrendous cold of the North. The ocean kept things normal, consistent, the way Chikae liked it, even as he dreamed of a life in California. Tonight, there were no thoughts of California. He was back home, under an open sky. The warmth teased, better suited for May than December. But Chikae enjoyed it just the same. Nights like tonight, where they could sit outside, smoke some great marijuana, and watch DeMarco act like a teenage idiot, were as enjoyable as they were simple.
He needed more of them.
Chikae thought about his job and the life that did nothing to stimulate him, as he watched DeMarco, still entranced by the fire. Wasn’t life about the thrills and excitement of your twenties? Chikae couldn’t remember the last time he was excited. And here was DeMarco, a grown man, adoring the flames as they leaped into the warm night. What must it be like? DeMarco didn’t have a lot of close friends anymore, couldn’t hold down a job, still lived with his aunt; but still seemed happy. Fulfilled.
Chikae had done everything he was supposed to do. He went to college after school, earning a degree and landing a respectable job; he had family and a few close friends and dozens of associates in his professional network; he had everything successful people had at this stage of his life. But yet, if a stranger watched the two of them, they would guess DeMarco was the more suc
cessful of the pair.
“I got an idea,” DeMarco broke Chikae’s silent reflection.
“Yeah?”
“Let’s head down to the club.”
DeMarco’s smirk held the promise of trouble. Chikae knew the signs well; he’d seen them a million times. Throughout their teen years, DeMarco tried to get away with things that ended with them getting their asses beat. But even beatings didn’t stop them from at least attempting to find trouble to fill their teenage weekends. More times than not, DeMarco was the epicenter of those plans, planning and scheming what he called ‘harmless fun’.
Chikae proceeded with caution. “What do you have in mind?”
The club was a dive bar on the outskirts of town, an obscure blight on a dead industrial area. The owners had liked it out there because they could get away with things to make a little extra profit. And that approved deviance made it a popular spot for teenagers back in the day. It was a place where they could buy alcohol and pretend they were something they weren’t. Everyone knew the club owners conducted shady business, but what teenager cared about that if they had a spot to dance, flirt, and get their drink on like their fathers did eight days a week?
But that legacy was the club’s death knell. One night, Jack, the majority owner, served a little too much booze to the wrong teenager. That kid, Jamaal, took it upon himself to try to drive him and his girlfriend home, killing both when he failed to stop for a red light and ran straight into the oncoming path of a semi-truck. The tragic end of two young lives was also the end of the club and any hope for the kids in town to have a drinking spot again. Outraged parents made sure of that. Without a spot to waste his weekends walking the razor’s edge of trouble, Chikae was forced to focus on other aspects of his life. Like his education. He was the first one in his family to finish college. He had a career. Everything turned out for the better.
That was almost 10 years now. What in the world would DeMarco want to do out there now? They were two grown men; they could go to any bar in town or head up into Annapolis. Either was a better prospect than the club.
“Yeah, let’s head down there,” DeMarco said, spinning back toward the car.
