What Price Gory?
Page 6
Gabriel allowed Mr. Freethy to pull closer to the old man.
“How are you, Mr. Freethy?” Clint spoke loudly, as if he were addressing a man hard of hearing. “I am a big fan of your work. Do you enjoy this place, sir?”
Mr. Freethy pulled at his collar and tried to shake free of Gabriel.
“He is quite energetic,” Clint said to Randall.
“Yes, he is,” Randall agreed. “But maybe we should take Mr. Freethy back to his room. The sight of new flesh always agitates them.”
“In a moment,” Clint said, staring back at Mr. Freethy. “Remove that muzzle on him. I wish to see the rest of his face.”
“Sir, I really don’t think that is a good idea. He is very bothered right now,” Gabriel warned.
Clint turned angrily to Randall. “I thought your staff could handle these people. Look at the trouble he is having with only one of the residents. I begin to doubt you, sir.”
“You have to understand, Mr. Geer. They are usually a lot more docile. It’s only when they encounter new people that they fuss like this. This is an extreme circumstance of their behavior,” Randall clarified.
“Show me his face or I will examine other avenues, Mr. Biddle,” Clint said firmly.
Randall sighed in resignation. “Do as he asks, Gabriel.”
Gabriel scowled and said, “Sir, I take no responsibility for this.”
“Just do as you’re told, boy!” Clint commanded, needing a snort of oxygen from the exertion.
“Unmask him, Gabriel. You won’t be held accountable,” Randall assured the man. “I promise.”
Gabriel loosened the muzzle from the back of Mr. Freethy’s head and let it fall to the ground. The dead man growled and snapped its rotted teeth toward Clint.
Clint’s face wrinkled. “Christ, the stench,” he said, waving the air in front of his face.
“Hygiene isn’t a high priority for them,” Randall said. “And any attempt at cleaning them only worsens their skin and strengthens the smell.”
“Still, you couldn’t force a mint on him?” Clint carried on, his eyes watering. “His breath is monstrous.”
Mr. Freethy was becoming harder for Gabriel to control. “Sir, I must take him away now,” the orderly said, pulling back as hard as he could on the dead man.
The bar that steered the choke collar snapped from its loop. Gabriel fell backwards, landing hard on the floor. The back of his head slammed against the door.
Mr. Freethy clambered onto Clint’s lap. It sunk its putrid teeth into the man’s shoulder and pulled back a rotted mouth filled with Clint’s meat. Clint bellowed in pain and his top dentures fell out.
Gabriel collected the muzzle and draped it over Mr. Freethy’s face. He pulled the dead man across the floor of the office and out of the room.
Clint examined the bite on his shoulder. It bled hard. “I demand you put that animal down,” Clint said, tears coming from him now. “Look what it has done to me.”
Randall came around and squatted in front of the wheelchair. “Now, Mr. Geer, that goes against every policy we have. Mr. Freethy has put his vast fortune into this place, and we are committed to his continuance.”
“Fire the orderly, then,” Clint said, angrily shoving his teeth back into his mouth. “The bastard let it go at me.”
Randall put a hand on Clint’s good shoulder. “You need to calm yourself, sir, for you are infected now, and the change will be hastened by your outrage. We have things to settle, Mr. Geer, before your care can begin.”
“What, the papers?” Clint said, grimacing from his pain. “That must be addressed later.”
“You won’t have the faculties. In two hours, you won’t even be able to sign your name. In six or so, you’ll be one of them. We have to finish the paperwork, Mr. Geer. And if you have changed your mind, I will have to turn you over to the men with the spikes,” Randall said calmly.
“Do you threaten me, boy?” Clint said, panting harder for air.
“Sir, I merely inform you of the two options we are now faced with.”
Randall brought the paperwork to Clint’s lap and pressed a pen in the man’s shaking hand. “Make your mark, sir, and let’s begin your transition.”
Clint signed the paperwork at numerous spots. Randall pulled it away and tossed it on the desk.
“Now what?” Clint asked. His face was even paler.
Randall pressed the intercom. “Melinda, send in the boys and tell them to bring a gurney and have the transition room prepped. Mr. Geer is coming in the hard way.”
“I’m on it, sir,” the reply came.
The men were there quickly. They hoisted Clint up and strapped him down on the gurney.
“Where are they taking me?” Clint asked weakly.
“First, we’ll deactivate that implant inside of you. Then, we will be taking you to a place we call the transition room,” Randall replied. “It’ll be a safe and quiet place for you to change. Now, I must tell you, Mr. Geer, this is the most painful method of adjustment. Your blood will burn for hours, sir. And you might even plead for the spike. You have been harshly initiated.”
“Just one thing, Mr. Biddle,” Clint said, grasping Randall’s arm. “Give me my sunsets, sir. Please don’t deny me.”
“Your last request in this life is granted,” Randall said, pulling himself away gently. “Now you must go, Mr. Geer. I will reintroduce myself to you tomorrow.”
The men scooped up Clint’s oxygen tank and they rolled it away with the old man. Clint’s frightened eyes strained at Randall until they men drove him from the room.
Before Randall could even take a breath, Gabriel stuck his concerned face back in the office. “Where is he? Have they taken him to transition, yet?”
Randall gave him a stern look. “Pack your belongings, sir. I’ll have you escorted to the gate.”
“What? No! You said I wouldn’t be blamed!” Gabriel protested.
Randall let out a good long laugh and pointed to his man. “Oh, your face.”
“That was cruel,” Gabriel complained, but he smiled anyway. “You really had me going.”
“Care to join me for a scotch, or are you on duty?”
“I’m always on duty,” Gabriel said, putting his rear on the chair in front of the desk. “But I’ll have one anyway.”
Randall pulled the scotch and two glasses from a cabinet. He poured the drinks and handed one off to Gabriel. “What do you think about it?”
“What do I think about what?” Gabriel said curiously. He gulped half the drink down.
“Would you continue, if you were able?”
Gabriel thought on it but not for long. “I’d take the spike. I’d take it because I believe in God and I trust in him. What about you?”
Randall hiked up his eyebrows and shrugged. “I’m not sure. I go back and forth on it everyday. I figure I have time enough to consider it. Oh, by the way, Mr. Geer has false teeth. See that they are screwed into his jaws permanently. He needs to be able to feed himself.”
“That reminds me, sir,” Gabriel said. “We are having some problems with the older clients. They are falling apart. We’ve used splints and thread on them, but they haven’t much mobility left. It might be more humane to just put them down.”
Randall walked over to his office window. He drew the blinds up and stared out through the bars. “We care for them until they are dust, Gabriel. I value you, but never suggest something like that again.”
“I forgot my place, sir. I’ll be going, then,” Gabriel said, putting the drink aside and standing. He noticed the paperwork on Randall’s desk. “Is that the Geer contract? Should I drop it off at admissions for you?”
“No, I need to double check a few things. I’ll drop it off myself.”
“Did the old man have any conditions or requests that I should communicate to admissions?”
Randall stared at the gathering darkness. The sun was setting, and a beautiful red hue colored the lower sky. The clouds above the sun were thick and orange on t
he bottom. Randall couldn’t recall ever appreciating such a sight before. But it would be his practice now, everyday, and he decided to be selfish with it.
“No,” Randall finally replied, his eyes still on the colors. “Mr. Geer had no requests at all.”
THE HAIRY ONES
Red Hammond knew the consequences of chasing other gods. There was a law, a holy decree, which he was breaking. A sacrifice to the hairy ones was a blasphemous act. But he was committed to the demons in the woods by his very bloodline.
He had made peace with it long ago, but his wife, Nora, still fretted over it all. They had shared a home and life for nearly fifty years, but Nora still loathed this autumn ritual. She had been a Christian before her vow to Red. Nora had abandoned her faith to be with her husband. She had given up on her God and embraced the old ways.
Red and Nora’s aged armchairs rested side by side. Red had a newspaper pulled up to his face. Nora bit her lip and stared at the front door. She waited anxiously for the night to end.
The boy started moaning again. Nora rose.
“You know you’re not to go out there, woman,” Red cautioned. His eyes stayed on the newspaper as he reached for his pipe.
Nora settled back against her chair and frowned. “And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto evil spirits, after whom they have gone astray,” Nora recited gravely.
Red put the paper aside. He took off his reading glasses and folded them into his breast pocket. “We do what must be done. We do what has been done for generations.”
“The blood of it weighs on me,” Nora confessed. “My faith weakens.”
“I don’t fault you none. But it is our path,” Red told her.
Nora found more pain inside. Her gray face scowled. “You bring these lost children to me and I take to them, because I have none. You do this to me every year. You make me a mother for a month or so and then you tear them away and it breaks my heart, Red.”
“I know, mama,” Red said, taking his wife’s hand. “Our crops grow undaunted and we do well. But a price hangs on these things.”
The boy moaned louder. It was the only noise they could hear coming from outside. There was usually a chorus of coyotes at the river bed around this time of evening. This night, Halloween night, all was quiet and still out there. The hairy ones were coming, and the creatures of the forest hid cautiously.
Only Duncan, the homeless teenager Red had found in Weatherford, faced the darkness. He was naked and tied up on the porch, his arms and legs bound and spread between the wood columns that supported the porch roof. Red had engraved an ancient character onto the boy’s chest. Duncan bled from the cut, but Red knew the wound would attract no animals. The boy was marked for the hairy ones.
Nora had adorned the porch with decaying Halloween decorations and freshly carved jack-o-lanterns; but the farm was set so far into the wild that only the forest spirits could appreciate the display. Red had never greeted trick-or-treaters at the door of the house. He didn’t bother with holiday provisions. No one came to his step on Halloween; except the hairy ones.
“The boy was smart and so funny,” Nora carried on. Her heartbroken eyes were still on the door. “You never get to know them. But I have to, Red. I have to make a home for them until the slaughter.”
“We’re kind to the pigs and the chickens as well, mama. But then butchery comes and we prosper. It is the way of things,” Red explained, sucking on his pipe.
They could hear the howls of the hairy ones in the distance. Red turned off the reading lamp, darkening the living room. He smothered his pipe.
“They’re coming,” Nora whispered, clutching at her blouse.
“It’s almost done,” Red said, putting his hand on his wife’s knee. He felt her tremble beneath his touch. “One last chore and then this is behind us for another year.”
Nora closed her eyes and she shook. “The worst is yet to come. I hate it.”
“Just let them do what they will, mama,” Red urged. “It offends me as well, to be taken and to see you taken thusly. But it’s a part of this, and it all washes off.”
The hairy ones came closer. Red could sense them prowling nearby. Nora’s hand tightened on his.
Duncan’s swelling wails confirmed the arrival.
The hairy ones had the boy. Duncan’s screams were rich with agony and terror and they rang through the thick gag that Red had placed across the boy’s mouth. Red always gagged them. Otherwise, the children would make frightened pleas to Nora, and this was a torture that she couldn’t endure.
The old couple sat in the darkness and clung to one another. They recited a dark and old prayer.
The screams subsided quickly. The torment never lasted that long. The hairy ones were too famished to be cruel.
Red waited for the flutes. They finally sang.
“It’s time,” Red said somberly.
The two disrobed quietly. They were comfortable with each other in their bareness; neither had a shy bone. Red looked at his wife’s old flesh and he saw the flirtatious young girl who had trapped his heart years ago. He felt sad and dread tickled his stomach.
Red knew the orgy would be foul and long. The muddy violations upon the couple would be numerous. Their bodies would be dirtied and mined for pleasure until dawn. But it would appease the hairy ones; for a time, at least.
Red and Nora clutched hands and walked out into the night. They stood on the porch. The cold wind strengthened.
The boy was gone. The ropes that had held Duncan danced.
“Gratias agimus tibi propter liberalitatem,” Red proclaimed to the dark. His body shuddered.
Faces crept into the glow of the jack-o-lanterns. The horned things were covered with fur and blood. Their smiles were wet and their black eyes shimmered with a horrible affection.
THE HERMIT’S CREEPY PET
The first sentence was always the hardest. At least, that was what Tommy Summers had always read. And he had read quite a bit on the art of writing. The cursor on his laptop winked incessantly at him; the only marker on an otherwise blank page. Tommy stretched his toes further into the blanket wrapped around his legs and feet. He noted that his mother’s house had been constructed perfectly to provide shelter from the summer, but the structure held very little consideration for the winter. The older house was thin on wall insulation and heavy on windows, and this was indeed a blessing during the punishing heat waves Texas was famed for. But Tommy had no idea why a compromise between the seasons couldn’t have been better made when the house was built. The January cold permeated the place, and he spared the heating to save on the bill.
This miserly act certainly made the house still feel like his mother’s. It was a practice she would have encouraged. But the house did, in fact, belong to him and his family now. And that family consisted of two others; his wife Molly, and three year-old son, Tyler, though Tommy was the only one haunting the house at the moment.
Tommy lived on a sharp hill road in Lake Worth, Texas. The road was just a tiny vein that fed off of the Jacksboro highway. On this road were five other homes. Three were rentals, one was a bank owned and the very top of the hill belonged to Stan Whitley, a bad-natured hermit whose family had owned the property since Lake Worth’s inception in 1914.
Tommy was a substitute teacher for the Lake Worth school district. He was a forty year old semi-failure, he guessed; he worked sporadically at best. The lion’s share of housework fell to him, and it was only fair; another arrangement that certainly made his mother smile somewhere in the great unknown. He tried not to let it emasculate him too much. And he honestly didn’t mind it, as he contributed very little to the bills himself.
His incredibly patient wife Molly, seven years his junior, carried most of that weight these days. Molly waited tables during the week at a truck stop in Azle. On the weekends, she was a bartender on the day shift at a local Lake Worth bar. She worked herself silly. Molly rarely had work complaints, though, and they usually pertained only to some form of d
runken grab ass. She had every right to hate her life, but she didn’t. Even when Tommy started feeling that urge to place words on paper, she gave him nothing but support. It had always been his dream, and Molly was a fan of dreams.
Writing a short story had been his New Year’s resolution, and it was one that Molly had made him stick to.
Tommy stood away from the desk in his tiny home office and trudged toward the kitchen, that blank page tormenting him. He poured himself another cup of coffee, noting the time; ten a.m. He had been staring at the computer and racking his brain for well over an hour. He glanced at the refrigerator and saw the colorful magnet letters and numbers arranged in no particular order on the door. He thought of Tyler, who was currently in pre-school, and figured if he couldn’t get the words down today, he might just swing by early and pick Tyler up and spend some quality time with him. Molly would enjoy that; a fatherly gesture performed without prompting. And besides, there was nothing sexier to Molly than a good daddy, and it had been a spell.