Wait Until Twilight

by Sang Pak

  I run out to the truck and, after a few jerks and one stall out, get driving as fast as she’ll take me out to the Kmart. There’s a steady stream of shoppers pushing their red shopping carts out of the store. They remind me to calm down and drive slowly, even though my mind is going a thousand miles per hour thinking about Daryl and what he’s done to those babies. Just the thought of it makes me want to puke. I pull around back and park alongside the trash bins. As I get out I see the Charger carefully parked behind them on the other side. My nervousness triples at the sight. I pull out the knife before setting out down the path. Surprisingly, my hand is steady and my legs are sure. I can feel my will driving me toward the shed. It’s gotten real hot and humid since I left. Summer is definitely here. My shirt’s already soaked with sweat by the time I get past the kudzu and into the deep woods. I need to do this before it gets too dark—otherwise, he’ll have too much of an advantage. The sky’s already turned red, and the tiny fluorescent yellow dots of lightning bugs blink among the trees. It’s twilight now.

  SPRINTING FULL ON, IT DOESN’T TAKE LONG to reach the clearing. Without slowing down I keep running straight at the shed door and bust in, praying I’m not too late. It happens in an instant. I don’t even have time to react. He must have seen me coming through the window because he’s waiting for me from beside the doorsill. He grabs my wrist with the quickness of a cobra, and we’re spinning around as we struggle for that knife. It’s almost like we’re ballroom dancing. His blue hat flies off, and his greasy brown hair’s all in his face, but I can still see his cold eyes. I try to ram him against the table, anything to jar him, but he keeps pulling away, using my own momentum to keep me off balance. Then he drives us out the door, slamming us both into the ground. The knife comes loose, and for a moment I lose my bearings. It gives Daryl enough time to grab the knife. He stands up real slow, dusting himself off. “Whew,” he says. “You almost got me. Next time, try using stealth, dummy. I could hear you trampling here from a mile away.” He rubs the knife across his pant leg on both sides and takes a good hard look at it. I get ready to bolt. Then, he smiles and shakes his head. “Whoa. Whoa now. Stay. You’ve come a long ways. I won’t be needing this anyhow.” He tosses the knife off to the side. “I knew you’d come,” he says. “You always do. Just like that first day. You came for me…and them.” He takes off his grimy shirt, revealing scars all over a lean, muscular body. “You’re a real killer, you know that?” he says.

  “Yes, I am,” I say. I’ve almost caught my breath. Keep talking.

  “What’s gotten into you, boy?”

  “I’m a killer of the cold. Of the darkness.”

  “Ha-ha. You’ve gotten full of yourself since I last seen ya. Shit. One way or another…” he says. “If I have to beat you and then use your hands…”

  Just a little longer, I say to myself. Keep talking. Give me a little more time to catch my breath.

  “Maybe I’ll cut them off.”

  There’s no way I can win in a straight fistfight. He’s too strong. He’d kill me. I’ve got to get close, right up to him. If there’s any space between us, I’m done. But I can’t let him get on top of me.

  “You’ll be thanking me”—he keeps talking—“in the end.”

  I make a run headfirst to tackle him around the waist. He makes a “Hmph!” sound, and we both land on the ground grappling each other. Using his superior strength, he tries to turn us over, but when he does, I pull off and squirm on top of his back. If I could get a rock, I could bash the back of his head in, but he’s too fast and there aren’t any big rocks. I can’t get ahold of him—he’s too slippery. So I get my arm around his neck and hold on. He turns us over again, this time with me on my back and him on his back on top of me. He’s trying to squeeze me against the ground. But I don’t let go.

  Then he grabs my wrapped hand, which is at the end of the arm around his neck, and starts squeezing at it with both hands. “Ahhhh!” I yell. I can feel the wounds getting torn open all over again. He realizes going at my wounded hand isn’t enough to get me to let go, so he starts rolling like a crocodile rolling its prey underwater. He rolls us all over the ground, trying to get me to let go. He’s starting to get desperate. My chokehold’s working. He stops rolling around and tries to pry my arm loose, but his hands are weaker than before. They slap at my arm and my face haphazardly. He’s squirming now. I can beat him. I am beating him. I can barely believe it. I squeeze even harder. The weaker he gets, the stronger I get. This has to end. Then I feel a jolting pain in my ribs. For a moment I think he somehow got the knife and stabbed me. I feel it again and again. He’s slamming his elbow into my ribs with everything he’s got left. I can’t help it. I have to let go. He crawls away coughing and spitting, taking in these deep breaths. The knife. He’s dragging himself in the direction of where he tossed the knife. I grab him by the waist, but he keeps crawling and kicking me away, like a snake trying to shed its skin. I’m barely holding on by his ankles when there’s a loud crack. He stops kicking, and I think, God, he’s got the knife. I struggle back up to him as fast as I can but he’s not fighting back. He’s just twitching slightly.

  “Samuel! Get away from him,” yells Mrs. Greenan from the edge of the clearing. She has a rifle trained on Daryl. I look down, and there’s a patch of blood blooming from his side.

  “I never thought they’d live this long.” He looks sidelong at me as he speaks. He’s breathing heavily, kicking up some dust from the ground when he does. “They weren’t supposed to live this long. Three months, the doctor said. They’re demons. Kill them. Kill—”

  “Samuel! Get back!” She’s walking up with the muzzle aimed at his head. I sit up on my butt and scoot back. It feels like I’ve been lifting concrete blocks all day. My arms are shaking really bad. I’m sore all over.

  “I brought ’em into this world,” says Daryl. “I had to take them out…”

  Mrs. Greenan is in tears. Her face is all squinted up from crying. She starts yelling at Daryl: “You shouldn’t have done it. When you crawled into my bed that night, all sweaty and stinking of whiskey…what you did to me, your mother. You’re my son. How could you do that? It wasn’t right what you did to me. And it ain’t right what you’re doing now.”

  “It made me a real man.” Then he whispers. “My sons. My brothers.” And stares at me with lifeless eyes. I get up and stagger back to the shed, holding my aching ribs with trembling hands. Don’t be dead. The three boxes sit there lined up evenly on the worktable. I don’t want to look inside them, but as I step up to do so, I hear a cough. Down in the corner by the bunk is the skunk bag. I open it, and the babies look up at me in terror. They’re real quiet. But then when they see me, they squeak. “Eeeek.” And like the first time I saw them, it feels like electricity inside me. But I don’t feel like puking or anything like that. It’s something else. I grab ahold of them and pull them against me. I can feel their heartbeats, the breath of life coming from those perfect mouths, and the vital movements of those misshapen limbs. Just as human as me. One of them grabs my hair with his good arm, and another has his tiny little hand on my cheek. Then it comes out of one of them. “Momma!” it screams. The other two follow along, screaming “Momma!” In their voice I can hear my own, calling out to a mother I lost and hope to find once again. I feel a gentle hand on my shoulder. I look up to find Mrs. Greenan.

  “Oh, thank you, Samuel. Thank you. Your mother would sure be proud of you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’m sorry.”

  “There ain’t nothing to be sorry about. You saved them. You’re a hero.”

  I hand her two of the babies and hold one myself. We leave the shed. The lifeless body lies on the ground staring up at the sky. All the strength and power it once contained now leaked out into nothing. The black boots look almost childish sprawled that way, the brogans sad and washed out. He looks like a homeless person taking a nap on the ground. “Come on,” Mrs. Greenan says. “There ain’t nothing to look at he
re.” And we go out onto the path with the babies in hand. After a while the one I’m holding stops crying and holds on to my neck tightly with its one good arm. It looks out ahead of us, and I spend half my time watching it. From the side, its head and face look perfectly normal. The fine and thin hair is wet and matted down around the nape of its neck. I can smell its baby sweat, and it’s sweet. I remember that night with Daryl in the house. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, moving my mouth silently.

  When we get to the end of the clearing, I can see Mrs. Greenan’s Oldsmobile parked behind the Charger. She puts them on a blanket in the backseat.

  “Go,” I say.

  “What about you?” she asks.

  “There’s something I gotta do. Go on home.”

  She backs out from beside the trash bins and drives back to the front of the Kmart. When she’s gone, I hop into the back of the truck. I grab the gas can Jim always keeps back there and toss it onto the ground. I check my pocket for the pack of cigarettes and lighter Jason gave me that night. Then I jump off and grab the can. It’s another long walk back to the clearing, especially with that gas can in my left hand. When I get there, Daryl’s still lying there dead, quiet. I pour the gasoline all inside the shed, around the whole clearing, saving Daryl for last. Before I pour the gas on him, I slip his wallet out of his back pocket and take out the picture of my mom. I feel stronger just looking at her. I put it back in my wallet behind my driver’s license. Then I take that rotten picture he took of me and the babies and lay it on top of him with his wallet and pour out the rest of the gasoline until he’s nice and soaked. With the little gas left I make a trail from the shed to Daryl’s body all the way back to the path at the end of the clearing. I light it and run, feeling this great weight lifting off of me as I move through the woods. The red on the horizon has been replaced with a deep blue that’s already blackening at the zenith of the sky.

  I SLIDE INTO THE TRUCK and the smell of Pine Sol mixes with the gasoline from my hands. I roll down the windows before driving to the front parking lot, where I almost run over some kids coming out of the Kmart. As I’m pulling out I look in the rearview mirror and see smoke and even a little red coming from the woods back there. I hit the accelerator and pull out onto the street. It’s hard as hell driving like that with my busted hand and the shakes I’m getting. Close to home I pull over and smoke one of the cigarettes to steady myself. I dry heave a couple of times and sit there staring out at the pasture that the road cuts through. It’s quiet except for a lone car that passes me. The smell of honeysuckle slowly enters the cab of the truck. I pick up my cell phone and call Melody. She picks up after the fifth ring.

  “Hey, there’s something I want to tell you,” I say. “Something I’ve been wanting to get off my chest.”

  “Well, go ahead then,” she says kind of coolly.

  “I’d like to tell you in person.”

  “What is it?”

  “No, I don’t want to say it over the phone.”

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  “No. Just…can I tell you something? It’s about how I’ve been acting weird.”

  After a thoughtful pause she replies, “That I’d like to know. Where are you?”

  “On my way home.”

  “All right. How about I meet you there?”

  “Fine. Let’s go somewhere else from there, then.”

  “Whatever. You didn’t rob a bank, did you?”

  “No. I’ll see you soon.” I hang up and sit there for a while listening to the crickets and watching it get darker and darker, the red sun sinking lower over the hills and treetops. A bird slowly glides by, barely even having to flap its wings. It’s those V-shaped wings that make me believe it’s a hawk. I can’t remember seeing something so damn nice. By the time I get back on the road homeward bound, the stars have begun to appear in the shallow night sky.

  When I pull into our driveway, there’s a light on inside the house and Melody’s there sitting on the trunk of her Fiat, which is parked behind Dad’s car. “C’mon,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  “Go where?” she asks.

  “I don’t know…anywhere. Let’s just go. We can talk in the truck.”

  “What’s the rush? Anyways, your dad wants to show you something.”

  “You talked to my dad?” I ask.

  “Yeah, he came out and told me to bring you inside to show you something he made. He says you’ll know what I’m talking about.” Melody’s met my dad a few times at the hardware store and at the house, too, but I’ve always been around. It was strange them talking together without me there.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “We’ll come back.”

  She leans over into the window and points. “What happened to your hand?”

  “Basketball injury, it’s nothing. Get in,” I say.

  “Did you get in a fight?”

  “Just get in.”

  Then Dad comes out from the garage and waves for me to come in. I get out of the truck, and Melody and I walk into the garage. “He was trying to get away,” Melody tells Dad.

  “He was, was he? How’s that hand?” he asks me.

  “It’s fine.”

  “Who makes narrow steps without railings?” he says.

  “Huh?”

  “Jim told me how you fell down the steps at his apartment. I’ve seen those steps. Whoever designed that place was a fool.”

  “Right, the steps. I went kersplatt.” I look over at Melody to see if she’ll say anything about the inconsistency in my story but she just shakes her head.

  “Well, did Melody tell you about the project?” Dad asks.

  “You’re finished.”

  “That’s right. Me and Jim are going to hook up the last part of the wiring. Why don’t you wait in the laundry room?” Dad scurries back into the house. He looks like a little kid. I haven’t seen him this excited since the Braves went to the World Series. Melody and I go into the laundry room in the back of the garage where there’s a door that leads to the backyard. She closes the door and it’s pitch-black in there. I can’t see a thing.

  “Leave the light off,” she says. There’s a slow hum coming from the water heater. “Now, you want to go ahead and tell me what was on your mind?” her disembodied voice says in the dark. It’s almost solemn the way she says it, and it makes me even more compelled to speak.

  So I start talking. It’s kind of hard at first and I’m kind of mumbling, but soon the words come. “She’d got word about the growth in her head before, but she still had time left. So, my mom and I were supposed to go on some cruise. We hadn’t spent that much time together, and she thought it would be good for us. Dad had to work, and Jim had just left for college. It wasn’t long or anything, just off the coast of Florida. Three days of going around in circles and coming back to the port. That was it. My mom had got us this package through a travel agency.” I wipe my brow thinking there’s sweat there, but it’s dry. “We met all the other local passengers at the mall, and they were all young, you know.” I can feel my lip quivering. “I had packed a small suitcase and somehow it got lost. It had my iPod in it and everything. I got so pissed and blamed my mom. I used it as an excuse not to go, so she went on her own. Dad didn’t like it, but I went with some friends to the beach instead. It wasn’t even that far from where the cruise ship launched. I didn’t want to go because I felt embarrassed because I was with my mom.” I swallow a lump in my throat. “She was there all alone on that boat with that tumor in her head”—I cringe—“while I was playing with my friends.”

  “Samuel,” Melody says soothingly.

  “After I had my fun I got back home and it was almost like normal, you know. Mom didn’t say a word about the trip, but I was nervous all the time. I was just waiting for someone to say what a shit I was, but no one did. It was like that for a couple of weeks. Then she just fell.”

  “Samuel.”

  “She stayed in the hospital hooked up to all these machines. It was like she wasn’t e
ven human. She just stared into space like a zombie. Almost like a vegetable, except her mouth just moved a little like she was trying to talk without a sound. She was like that for three days, then she died.” My face is hot and wet with tears. “I thought I killed her.” I catch my breath. “I was the monster. I hated myself. I was the one that I wanted to destroy. Not them. Not anyone else.” I hold my face. In the comfort of the dark in that laundry room, in the presence of my confessor. Then Melody places my head on her shoulder. And I feel warm inside. The kind of warmth I felt with Naomi. The kind of warmth I felt from my mom. It stays like that for some time. Then I hear a strange sound. It’s like a big machine faltering and then stopping. Then a large pop sounds, and the water heater cuts off. It’s completely quiet. “What happened?” she asks.

  “Sounds like the power went out.”

  I can hear Dad and Jim coming out of the house into the garage. Melody and I quickly separate from our embrace, and Dad and Jim come in with flashlights. “I told you it was too much juice…” Jim’s saying.

  “I’ve used a lot more than that, son.” Dad turns to Melody and me. “Just a power surge. Just got to flip the circuit breakers.”

  “Dad, make sure the main line is off before you switch on the one for the outside outlets,” says Jim, following behind our dad.

  “When’d you start worrying so much?” With the door open there’s some light, and I can see Jim and Dad squeezing into the back of the laundry room, in between the water heater and the washing machine where the fuse box is.

  Dad opens the box and Jim says, “There’s too much power coming in through the outside. Switch the main power off first.”

  Dad flips a switch and there’s another loud pop! And then a zap! Then the hum of the water heater comes back on. In the darkness I see a small flicker, then a flame seems to come out of the wall where the circuit breakers are.

  “Dad!” I yell.

  “I can see it!” he yells back and he and Jim start to beat at the flame with their hands wildly like they’re trying to kill a scorpion on the wall. “Get it! Get it!” The flame just dances this way and that.