Consumed- The Complete Works

by Kyle M. Scott

  “D’you like how it feels, Gerry…losing what’s yours?”

  “I’ll…kill…you…”

  Josh ignored the idle threats. He allowed himself a moment to regain his composure. Bludgeoning his brother’s girlfriend to muck had been hard work, and he was no athlete.

  He expelled a weary sigh.

  “Can you guess what happens next, Gerry?”

  The older brother’s eyes darted to the discarded hammer. Josh followed them to the weapon, then back to look at Gerry.

  He laughed. “You’re not getting off that lightly, brother…”

  He wouldn’t have thought it possible for a person to look more terrorized than Gerry had this whole time, but the dark promise in his words really did the trick.

  Without another word, Josh made for the bedroom door, opened it, and reached for something just outside the room.

  With a grunt, he lifted the heavy object and moved back inside.

  Seeing what Josh had in store for him, Gerry bucked like a wild horse, driven near insane with terror.

  Josh unscrewed the seal.

  “The worst thing wasn’t you breaking my toys.” Josh said calmly, as though Gerry had asked. “It wasn’t you ripping their arms off, either. It wasn’t even you ripping their heads off. It was something that happened a long time ago. That was the worst thing.

  “Do you remember my sixth birthday? I do. I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember it because it was the year that Gran bought me an eight inch Superman figure. I loved that thing with all my heart, for the two or three hours I had it, I was in heaven. Superman was my idol, and you knew that. That’s why you did what you did. I remember how much I cried when you ruined that perfect day. I bet you do too, Gerry…”

  Josh allowed the memory to wash over him...

  The tantalizing unwrapping of his gran’s gift; so much more special because it came from her…his favorite person in the world.

  The beat of his heart as he unwrapped then held the huge Superman figurine high, like a treasure; immeasurable in worth.

  His gran’s sweet, kind face as she bathed in her grandchild’s unbridled delight.

  Running upstairs to his room, hungry to concoct myriad adventures for his hero in the imagined metropolis of his small bedroom.

  And then Gerry, stood in the doorway.

  Josh was unsurprised to find his own tears flowing, as the black memory of what came next washed away all the joy.

  All the light.

  There was only Gerry. His cruelty. His malice. His sick need to hurt and to break.

  Josh sighed. He raised the canister above Gerry’s head as Gerry begged.

  His brother’s screams went up a few octaves as the petrol poured over his scalp, over his face, down his chest and over his groin.

  “The worst thing you ever did, was setting my Superman on fire.”

  Josh reached into his pocket, Brought out the matchbox.

  He removed a match. “He was so handsome. So clean-cut and perfect.”

  With a quick flick of his wrist, Josh scraped the match along the rough surface of the box’s sandpaper side.

  “He was my hero, and you melted him down to nothing.”

  The flame flickered before Josh’s eyes. He watched the light dance; marveled at its terrible hunger to devour.

  “That was the worst part. You made a monster of him! You…” Josh paused.

  Gerry mewled like a kitten.

  “I think you get the idea…”

  Josh tossed the match into his brother’s lap and watched the flames burn bright.

  The sirens were getting closer.

  Josh had always had a hard time distinguishing the different tones used by each of the emergency services.

  But not today.

  The fire-engines would be pulling up outside his home at any moment now. He briefly wondered who’d called them. After all, there wasn’t much smoke. He’d already put out the flames.

  He’d let Gerry cook just long enough that he was no longer recognizable as ‘The Golden Child’.

  In fact, he was no longer recognizable at all. The blistering, blackened thing that twitched in the still-smoldering chair barely resembled a human being. The eyes were melted away, scorched to nothing by the searing flames. The lips too, were entirely gone, affording Gerry a devilish, skeletal grin. His hair was burned away too, and in some places, even Gerry’s skull showed through, starkly contrasted against the black, crispy flesh.

  From top to bottom, Mum and Dad’s favorite son was little more than a seeping, melted heap of cooked meat.

  But he was alive.

  Josh had made sure of that.

  Hadn’t he promised Gerry that his fate would be worse than Brandi’s?

  He’d keep good on the promise.

  He briefly pondered what lay in store for the charred, blackened freak in the chair.

  Endless pain.

  Isolation.

  A future trapped within a hated shell, sightless and speechless, unable to escape from a darkness that could never be alleviated.

  Endless and bottomless despair.

  Josh smiled.

  His own fate, he was sure, would be far less severe.

  A decade or so in a mental asylum, then rehabilitation, then back out into the world.

  He was twelve years old. He’d be out by the time he was twenty five, easily.

  He could live with that.

  Nothing out here, anyway, he mused. It’s not like I have any friends, and like Gerry said, I was never going to find a girlfriend. No pussy for me, out here or in there…

  He’d be going away a long time. God only knew when he’d even set eyes on a girl again…

  Then it came to him.

  Josh smiled as the idea took hold.

  He looked at the broken, naked body on the bed. It was bent out of shape, sure…badly bruised too. Not to mention that the hardening soup of pummeled bone and brain, where Brandi’s head had been, was a little off-putting…

  But…

  Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  And it’d be kind of fun to play with someone else’s toy.

  Especially Gerry’s

  Pulling down his pants, Josh climbed onto the bed.

  It was eight long minutes before the firemen arrived.

  Enough time for Josh to play twice.

  TRADITION

  1

  Easter was supposed to be fun, wasn’t it?

  Well, this sure didn’t feel like fun to Billy.

  Not one little bit.

  Billy watched his older brother, Kevin; his perplexity growing with every moment. Kevin didn’t look like he was having any kind of good time either.

  In fact, Kevin looked scared.

  His brother wore deep furrows of worry on his face that had no godly right to be there, and the strange blend of determination and anxiety seemed to age his sibling right before his eyes. Kevin was only fifteen, and as handsome and carefree as any boy could hope to be.

  Usually.

  Yet as he determinedly dabbed the water paint onto the smooth surface of the hard-boiled egg, he looked worn down, fretful. His eyes seemed to dart out periodically into the darkening woods beyond their back porch, as though scanning the tree line for...

  What?

  Billy had no idea, but whatever it was, it wasn’t something good.

  Kevin was making him feel very uneasy.

  The two boys had been sat out here for over an hour now, dwindling away the early evening as the sun sank low. Twilight approached, casting its waning light across the mountainous terrain beyond the forest. The silhouettes of the jagged mountain peaks stood up like fangs biting into the purple-hued sky. It was both beautiful and somehow daunting to Billy, and only made more so by Kevin’s mood.

  Casting his eyes from the dark, towering peaks, Billy’s eyes lowered to his own small patch of the world. Black shadows capered on the threshold between the boy’s backyard and the old forest that was their neighbor i
n this new home.

  Normally, the mysterious, deep woods transfixed Billy; filling his heart with boyish wonder. Abbington Wood was a place of infinite intrigue in his keen young mind. A place where anything was possible and where true mystery still resided, even in the age of IPads, the internet and Google.

  Since moving to the small town during the early onset of winter, Billy had longed to explore the dark, unending woods. To make them his domain. A place of dreams where he could be anything and anyone he so chose to be. An elf battling Orcs for dominion of the realm, a wild mountain man of the old west, a soldier headed into desperate conflict with an enemy that only he alone could withstand. If the new family home was a place of comfort and warmth, the forest was something much more enticing. It was a canvas for his imagination. A place where, when springtime finally bled into an endless boyhood summer, he could run wild and free.

  Well, here it was. It was springtime and the forest was in bloom. He longed to explore. To push forth from the edge of his home and experience the majesty of the old forest for himself. It rested right on his own doorstep like the gateway between worlds.

  Billy huffed.

  That had been the plan. To explore.

  Only a week ago, Kevin had promised to take him out there beyond their yard. Together they would follow the small dirt path that led from their backyard, pass under the thick canopies, and follow the track to wherever it may go. Two fearless explorers, proudly treading into territories new.

  That had all changed this evening, though, when Kevin had returned from school, loping into their home like all the world bore down on his broad shoulders. His brother had seemed depleted, shrunken somehow, and far less buoyant than usual. It was as though all the verve and fire had seeped from his pores in the short space of a day.

  Billy sighed. This was the perfect time to go exploring, too. Their parents had warned them not to go into the woods alone, but tonight their parents were off with friends. They’d be gone until much, much later. At least one or two o’clock in the morning. Billy and Kevin had free reign of the house and of themselves.

  And instead of venturing into the beckoning unknown, here they were sat on the rickety old porch while Kevin painted some lame Easter egg.

  Even Billy, having just turned twelve the previous August, knew that this was an awful way to spend what could be an evening of unmitigated freedom. Why the hell was his older brother so damn hell-bent on painting that stupid egg?

  And why was he taking the activity so seriously?

  Worse than that, Billy was starting to feel a little afraid himself. Fear was like a virus. It spread and it wrapped its coils around anyone who let it in. He’d always looked to his older brother for support in such moments. Kevin was in many ways his idol. His hero. The older boy had been there for him during mom and dad’s numerous fights in their previous home. He’d been there to reassure him when they secretly watched late night horror flicks in their shared bedroom. He’d protected him from any older kids that had tried to pick on him. Kevin was strong, brave, and resolute. He could be a jerk sometimes, and would torment his kid brother from time to time just like any older sibling, but the one thing Kevin was not, was timid.

  Yet now, fear seemed to emanate from Kevin in waves, and it was creeping into Billy’s world, too.

  How could it not?

  As Kevin worked, carefully teasing the red paint across the flawless surface of the egg’s shell, Billy watched the woods beyond their home. Shadows crept across the small patch of grass that made up their yard like slowly grasping, elongated fingers, reaching closer and closer to the dimly lit porch where they sat, and for the first time, Billy sensed something else in the old forest besides adventure.

  He sensed dread.

  Unwilling to allow the fear to take hold, he pulled his eyes from the gloom of the tree line, and turned back to his older brother.

  “Kevin?”

  Kevin never looked up. His tongue protruded from his mouth in that way it always did when he was concentrating. “Yeah, what’s up?”

  Billy cleared his throat. “I was just wondering…could we maybe do something else tonight? This is sort of lame. Why don’t we watch a movie or something? Wanna watch a scary film with me, or…”

  Kevin cut him off. “No, Billy. I have to do this, okay. It’s important.”

  “Important? It’s just an egg, Kev. What’s so important about it?”

  “It just is!” Kevin barked.

  Billy flinched. Kevin had never raised his voice to him before. Sure, he’d cajole him and taunt him from time to time, but he’d never seen real anger bubble to the surface in his brother.

  Not like this.

  The harsh clip in his tone seemed to echo out over the yard and into the forest. There was no other sound besides the soft chirruping of the birds nestled in the canopies, and it made the words hit all the harder.

  Billy felt tears well up in his eyes, and with them, shame.

  Asshole.

  “Hey! I just thought we could have some fun! It’s getting to late to go into the woods now, but we’ve got the place to ourselves, Kev. Let’s at least do something cool!”

  His brother seemed to compose himself a little, finally looking up from the small egg and turning to face Billy. The waning sun cast his handsome face in soft fire, and as he spoke, Billy detected a sure trembling in his voice.

  “I’m sorry, kiddo, but I need to do this. Just trust me when I tell you it’s really fucking important, okay?”

  Billy gasped. “You said a bad word.”

  “I know. I know, and I’m sorry. I’m just a little freaked out right now, buddy. I didn’t mean to shout at you, but time’s wasting, and I’ve got to get this thing finished.”

  Kevin wasn’t making any sense, and he sure didn’t seem willing to talk about what he was doing. There seemed much more to this than simply following Easter tradition.

  Billy tried a different approach.

  “What are you painting on there, anyway?” he asked.

  Kevin sighed, holding the egg up before Billy’s face.

  He took in his brother’s work.

  It looked like he was painting an image of a boy on there.

  It was a rough likeness. Even though Kevin was quite an accomplished artist and had even gone so far as to win a few prizes in junior high for his work, the size of the egg and the evident trembling in Kevin’s hands had taken a toll on his workmanship.

  That said. Billy figured he knew who the clumsily painted figure on the egg’s surface was supposed to represent. The little painting had soft brown hair down to its shoulders, and wore a red t-shirt and dark blue denims, just like…

  “It’s me,” Kevin said, confirming his thoughts.

  “Why are you painting yourself on an egg?”

  “It’s just…I have to. I’d rather not explain.”

  “Come on, Kevin,” Billy groaned. “Tell me what you’re doing? You’re creeping me out.”

  Kevin’s attention was back on the egg, now. He lowered his head and began dabbing the brush onto the egg again. This time, he was working on the small self-portrait’s shoes. “You’d only be more creeped out if I told you, kiddo.”

  Billy huffed. “That’s a copout and you know it! This is full on weird, Kev. We could’ve been out there exploring the woods. Now it’s too late and instead we’re sat here like jerks painting your stupid egg!”

  Kevin continued his work. All his attention was on it. His eyes closed to no more than slits, as he worked the paint into his likeness.

  “Kevin!?” Billy shouted.

  The sudden rise in pitch almost caused Kevin to drop the egg. It slid momentarily from his grip, rolling across the tips of his fingers. With a small scream, Billy’s brother clasped the egg in his hand. Sweat broke out on Kevin’s forehead, running in tiny rivulets down his brow and into his eyes.

  “Jesus. That was close…” Kevin whispered. It seemed he was talking to himself now. He held the egg tight, as though it wa
s a brittle, precious artifact. His breath came in short hitches as he eyed it, scanning the surface for any cracks.

  The soft swell of apprehension rising in Billy was giving way to anger now. He watched, frowning, as his brother composed himself and got back to work.

  The hell with this!

  “What is your problem, are you on drugs or something? It’s just a boiled egg! If it drops and cracks, you can make another one. It’s not like the painting is any good anyway!”

  “You don’t understand,” Kevin muttered. “You can’t.”

  “Then tell me!” Billy implored.

  With a long, pained sigh of resignation that would befit their downtrodden father more so than his brother, Kevin’s careful stroke of the brush came to a pause. He lowered the brush into the small pot of water sat by his side and then, ever so carefully, he sat the egg in the soft folds of a towel he’d lain by its side. To Billy, the effect seemed like one laying a delicate newly born baby down to sleep.

  His brother must be on drugs.

  He had to be.

  Maybe he’d gotten hold of some of that marijuana the kids at school had been talking about. It was everywhere these days.

  Made sense that maybe Kevin was on something. It would explain this crap, anyway!

  When he’d laid the egg in its cotton nest, Kevin shuffled round on the porch, and faced Billy. His eyes were cast in shadow. The looming dark of the forest seemed to draw ever closer as the dying sunlight slipped over the horizon, as eager to be done with this day as Billy was himself.

  Then Kevin’s trembling lips parted, and he spoke.

  Billy soon began to wish he hadn’t.

  2

  “Look, what I’m about to tell you is going to sound fucking crazy, Billy, okay. It’s going to sound like I’ve lost my mind, but you have to believe me, this is real. Can you do that, Billy? Can you trust me?”

  Billy’s pause was short. “I think so…yes. Yes, I trust you.”

  Kevin nodded, took a deep, labored breath, and continued.