by Rowan Massey
He was suspicious that I’d been off doing something else. After all, last time I’d run off into the woods, I’d done three things I wasn’t supposed to.
“I put them in the bag so they couldn’t breathe,” I told him and dragged a hand under my nose. “One of them was already dead, so I know they were going to die anyway. I went ahead and put them down.”
He nodded and gestured for me to sit on the sofa. I did, tucking my chin into my chest. Something kept me from looking him in the eye, even though he would agree with my actions, at least in part. I was probably still on the hook for running off.
“Had to bury the dog myself,” he said slowly. “Would have gone and buried it with you if I’d known they killed a cat. Was that the momma?”
I nodded and dared to glance up at him. Surprisingly, he seemed worried, not angry.
“You’ve been through a lot, and you tried to do the right thing, didn’t you? I’m proud of you for that, but you’re still being punished. You should have told me, not run off like that and scared your grandma again. Start thinking before you act, son.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” I’d been acting tough all day, but I finally cracked. I couldn’t help it. I started crying like a baby. Once I got started, I quickly found myself choking and shaking uncontrollably. I knew Grandma could hear me, and I was ashamed. I wanted to tell him thank you for the words of forgiveness and understanding. I’d needed to hear that someone could still be proud of me. I hoped they would all trust me again soon.
He moved from his recliner to the sofa and put an arm around me. I accepted the embrace and clung to him for as long as I could without making it awkward. He patted my back and nodded as if to say, “okay, okay”.
Grandma came into the room and gestured with wide arms for me to give her a hug too. I stood and went to her. She pressed me to her warm bosom and kissed my head.
“Alrighty then.” she said. “You’re still in trouble, though. Go on to your room. Maybe this old man will go and get us a new TV already. I’m as bored as you are.”
“We’ll see,” he responded.
It was nice to hear them exchange some casual back and forth like they normally did. Smiling awkwardly, I went to my room with slow steps. It was terrible to find myself sitting on the bed again, staring at the same wall I’d been staring at for days. I took my shoes off, picked up my book, and kept reading.
That evening, Grandpa came home with a new TV. It was nothing to brag about, but it wasn’t two decades old either. They let me sit with them after dinner while they flipped through the four channels they could get on the bunny ear antenna. We settled on a family sitcom. One episode lasted thirty minutes, but it was the best half hour I’d had in days.
After the credits rolled, I was taken to the phone in the kitchen. It had one of those long, twisty cords that got dragged across the floor every day and was therefore always dirty. I was told to dial my mom’s house. She picked up immediately.
“Hello?”
“Mom? It’s me.”
The pause at the other end of the line made me anxious.
“Well, how are you? Are you behaving?” There was tension behind the questions. I found myself nodding, then realizing, and saying yes instead.
“Grandpa got Grandma a new TV.” I told her nervously, instead of answering. “They let me watch for a little while.”
“They did?” She seemed surprised. “Let me talk to one of them.”
They were sitting with me at the table, and I handed the receiver over to Grandpa.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “But he’s been good. Been taking his punishment. No trouble. Actually, he’s been learning a lot.”
While he told the story of that morning, I slouched and fiddled with my hands. He left out the part about how I’d run off on my own and focused on my learning a lesson. I couldn’t make out her response, but she didn’t sound pleased. With each sharp tone coming from the receiver, I shrunk further down to the ground. His face fell, and he asked, “What did the doctor say?” and then said, “uh-huh” and “hmm” a few times before handing the phone over to Grandma and getting up to leave the room, gesturing for me to follow.
I thought we were going back to the TV, but he passed by it and stood by one of the windows. He put his hands in his pockets and seemed to be thinking. I stood in the middle of the room and picked at my face where I’d been bitten by mosquitoes in the woods.
“Is Liam okay?” I asked.
“Not exactly. His chest still hurts a little. A lot of bruising.” He turned to look at me and hesitated before going on. “He’s been having nightmares…”
My hands went to my face because I didn’t want to be seen. The shame of my mistakes washed over me, stronger than ever. I was too ashamed to even apologize again, although the only words running through my head were “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”
“I think you’ll be staying here until next month. Hopefully your dad will have enough time off work to come out here and check in, but I doubt it. Plan goes, you go on staying in your room, helping with chores, and no more TV. I don’t think your momma would want you to have books either, but we won’t tell her. Alright?”
“Yes sir,” I said miserably. He didn’t have to tell me to go back upstairs. I did so gladly.
With time, my secluded existence became comfortable, even cozy. With a guilty conscience, I admitted to myself that I was enjoying my punishment because of the books I was reading. Every day after breakfast, I helped with the dishes. I did cleaning, laundry, or yard work after lunch, and took the trash out after dinner. If there wasn’t anything for me to do, I was sent to my room and my novels. Whenever I got depressed about my situation, it was noticed, and I was given a hug and some encouragement.
Once a week on Mondays, Grandma took a trip into town for groceries. She took me along, and we stopped by the little local library first. It was tiny and badly air conditioned, but I immediately began to love it. I was only eleven, and hadn’t done much reading before, so there were a lot of classics that the librarian suggested I read, since I had enjoyed Dickens. The old adventure novels in cloth hardbacks became such friends to me that each week, I was reluctant to return them. I left with five books the first week, seven the next, and ten after that. I was greeted with a huge smile every time. It made me feel like a normal kid again.
One day, a few weeks before I would go home, Grandpa got a phone call.
“Ah! Good! Thanks for calling!” I overheard him say. It sounded mildly interesting. I wandered to the kitchen just as he was hanging up.
“Who was it?” I asked.
“Those neighbors with the goats. Animal control finally took care of those mutts. Probably putting them down in the morning. Nobody is going to want a wild dog.”
And that was that. It was over. All of the dogs and cats were dead.
◆◆◆
When my punishment was over, and it was time for Mom to come and pick me up, I made sure all my things were packed away and that my room and the bathroom were left perfectly clean. After going outside and visiting the graves of the animals and putting little bunches of dandelions on them—something I’d wanted to do but hadn’t let myself until then—I spent all morning sitting expectantly in the living room. There were no chores to distract myself with. My book was held open in my lap, but I found it hard to focus.
The front door had barely opened and shut before I darted into the front hall. I was eager to see Mom, but wasn’t sure what to expect. I had called home every other day, but she and my dad hadn’t exactly been chatty. When I asked them about Liam, I was told he was “recovering”. A few days before I was due to go home, I’d asked to talk to him on the phone, and been told he wasn’t ready. If he wasn’t ready, what was going to happen when I got back?
Mom slumped with a deep tiredness. She coldly looked down at me for a moment before robotically putting her arms out for a hug. It was the stiffest hug I’d ever gotten,
and possibly the most short-lived. It made me want to cry. She was still mad. Hadn’t I done enough? But she hadn’t been around for my punishment. She hadn’t seen how good I’d been. I’d have to show her back home.
Grandma and Grandpa came to greet her, and they all went to the kitchen, asking me to go—where else?—to my room. I came down for an awkward lunch just before getting in the van with Mom and driving away. Every day, I’d thought about going home because it meant the end of my punishment, but sitting there alone with Mom, I knew it wasn’t over. I was still very much in trouble.
As soon as I arrived home and took in the homey smells of the family, I found out why it wasn’t over. I was brought to the den right away, suitcase and book bag in tow. Dad and Liam had been watching TV. Liam was just as scared of me as he had last time I’d seen him. They both stood, and Liam tried to run away, but Dad caught by the arm and gently brought him close. The two of them stood there and looked me over. What did they think I was going to do? Hurt somebody?
“Hey buddy,” Dad said in a friendly manner, but no, he was talking to Liam, not me. “Don’t be scared. I’m right here. Clay won’t do anything bad ever again. Right?”
The burning look Dad gave me brought back the horrible memory of the welts he’d given me.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m really sorry. Liam, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I really didn’t. I thought you would get away…” I took a step forward and put my arms out, thinking we would hug like we always did when one of us had to apologize, but he flinched and his face twisted. He put fingers to his mouth and started to cry. Not the bratty, cry-baby kind of cry, but the new, frightened kind of crying that I hadn’t seen on him before that night.
Not knowing what else to do, I turned and left the room. Liam and I had always shared a bedroom, but I found that my bed was gone from its corner, and instead, Liam’s unmade bed had been moved to the center. New toys were scattered on the floor, and a little TV against one wall. My parents had always been against the idea of a child having their own TV. I stood there frozen with fear of what it could mean. Where would I go if I wasn’t going to stay at home anymore? I’d only just gotten back, and already, I was unwanted. I hadn’t had a chance to prove myself. A rebellion sprouted inside of me. It wasn’t fair. I’d been so good!
“Clay,” my mom was behind me, I turned and gave her a pleading look, which she didn’t respond to. “He’s still having nightmares now and then. We moved you over here. Come on.”
I followed her through the house and to the laundry room. How was I supposed to fit in there? It was tiny. But she opened the door at the other side of the room and turned to me, waving a hand around inside the little storage room there. They had taken all of the Christmas things, Dad’s old tools, and a lot of accumulated junk to make room for all my things, including my bed, which was wedged in with no space on the sides. I would have to climb over the footboard to get in bed at night.
Stunned, I stood there and said nothing. Mom walked past me with inches to spare in the tight space, but didn’t touch me.
“Put your stuff away,” she said. “Settle in a minute until I come back.”
I put my suitcase and book bag on the floor, since it was the only spot available, and sat awkwardly against the footboard. For a long time, I waited, listening for sounds in the house. Many thoughts went through my head, but my small rebellion fizzled quickly. Soon, I was deep in self hatred. No wonder they hadn’t forgiven me. Liam was scared of his own brother to the point of having nightmares, Mom had dark circles under her eyes and a heaviness to her step, and Dad was probably pretty mad about the inconvenience alone. He hated coming to Mom’s house. I was nothing but a problem.
She didn’t come back, and I heard nothing from the house. There were too many walls between me and anything that might be going on, and besides, the air conditioning was right outside the closet, and it was noisy.
I got out the one book I’d come home with. It was just a copy of Call of the Wild I’d found on Grandma’s shelves. I wasn’t keenly interested in the description, but I’d asked her if I could take a book home. Knowing I might not be allowed to enjoy my reading the way I had been doing, she gifted it to me.
I took my shoes off, climbed into bed, and cracked it open. There was a window high on the wall but it didn’t offer much light. The only lighting available was an ugly fixture on the ceiling. I would ask for a lamp some other time. I tried to be grateful that I had something to read, at least for the moment, if I was going to be kept tucked out of sight.
Later, I was brought into the kitchen for dinner, but everyone but me had already eaten. I was given a plate of meat and potatoes and left to eat alone.
Chapter Twenty
Zander Age 18
I DIDN’T HEAR from Clay for just over a day, which made me nervous enough that my brains started spazzing out on me. I couldn’t look at my phone without seeing teensy flies on the screen. They crawled out of anything black—text, pictures, borders, and icons—as if emerging from an inky abyss in another dimension. The Lovecraftian idea of a sick place existing just behind my phone, right next to my hand, made me cringe over and over every time another little winged guy appeared. I tried to ignore it, but there was a black void sucking at me with every second Clay didn’t send me his usual daily greeting.
The phone had to be put aside, and since I was trying to keep from giving myself bruises that Clay might notice, I did something I would have done a long time ago if I’d had a more functional sense of practicality. In the living room, I took two pillows from the easy chair, figuring nobody sat in that chair anyway, and put them in the bathroom next to my chains on the floor. I got some of those junky peanut butter and cheese crackers from the kitchen, and fetched an empty coke bottle from the trash. I could use it to piss in since I never chained myself loosely enough to use the toilet. It took some doing to come up with a water bottle among the plastic containers stored in random places around the kitchen. I came up with a thermos I’d had since elementary school. The Disney character on it had a toothy smile that grew while I filled it with tap water. The scuffed red in the image turned bright like a stop light until I had to look away for the sake of my eyes.
When I got back to my phone, there was a message waiting for me.
Clay: Good news. Hiring a PI today. Wish me luck.
A cold weakness washed over me. So soon? What the fuck! I imagined some creepy ex-cop type skulking around on the edges of my life, contacting my mom, going through clues until he uncovered me, exposed my sickening plot.
A drop of something cooled my forehead, and I reached up to wipe the sweat away. Wild spinning sensations made me think I might collapse. I squatted to sit on my mattress, but I ended up folding until I fell backward, almost hitting my head on the wall. Legs splayed across the floor, I stayed that way for a while, staring at the ceiling. My brains felt like they were being flushed down a drain. There were intense worries on the edge of my mind, but something wouldn’t let them in. I found myself blank, not knowing how much time had passed. Looking at my phone, I found that it had been twenty minutes or so. Only one thought broke through the barrier: kill yourself, kill yourself, you’ll have to kill yourself.
If I’d believed in something spiritual, I would have called it the voice of God. It seemed like something outside of me and it was making perfect sense. I didn’t need to think through the reasons to off myself. Obviously, I was a worthless and perverted fuck up. The only thing I’d ever been good for was an enthusiastic blow job. Mom would definitely be better off without my sorry ass lingering in her house like a infestation that couldn’t be exterminated.
The knife was close by—right there in the kitchen. I found myself standing. Pushing my weight up onto my feet felt like dead lifting. Once on my feet, the air around me seemed to push back at me as I walked, shoes dragging on the stained carpet. The hallway of our little house had never been longer, but I kept going. My hand moved before I knew what it was doing, and
my fist jabbed at the air over my left arm in a stabbing motion.
Yes. It’s almost over, thank god. You’ll finally do it. You’ll finally die.
I held on to the door frame when I reached the bathroom. My eyes went to the pillows and meager preparations, and I laughed at the absurdity of trying to make something so bleak become more comfortable. My cheeks shook with the effort of smiling, until I stopped giggling like a demented maniac.
My legs pulled at the chains. When had I put them on? My wrists had the familiar feel of links against raw skin. The cold flooring, tight space, and the smell of a dirty toilet were unmistakable, but I was numbed. Skin was there, but wasn’t my skin anymore. It was distant and alien.
A miserable moan escaped me. When had I last cried—really cried like a baby? My face was wet, but I didn’t know if it was sweat, or tears, or both.
Minutes slipped into hours while panic swept over me, abated, then came back. Every time I thought about Clay, a wall went up in my mind, but I knew what was behind that wall no matter how much it tried to block the truth. I started to tell myself to wait it out. My sanity would come back and I would keep planning. Being chained started making me angry. I hadn’t even had the choice to chain myself. Something had been behind the wheel long enough to stop me from stabbing myself. Trying to remember doing it gave me a sense of the Lovecraftian dimension again. Something sentient was lurking just beyond the surface of reality. There was something there controlling me and I couldn’t figure out what it was or what form it might take next. The intense confusion and paranoia made me crave death even more. God, I just wanted to die already. Was that so hard?