Horror Business
Page 14
I stomp down on the creature’s face. It tries to bite my shoe. I’m too weak to do any real damage. Instead, I find a large rock.
The rock does the trick. I don’t stop until it’s wet. The creature stops moving.
Back in the clearing, I find the best-looking pile of bones and lie by them. Blood still rushes from my wounds, and my head is too heavy. The moonlight becomes unbearably bright. I shut my eyes against it. I hear approaching footsteps, and feel a presence loom over me, blocking the moon’s brightness on the back of my eyelids. A hand grabs mine and squeezes. I flinch, afraid to open my eyes. It doesn’t let go.
***
I wake up shivering, face to face with the hollow-eyed skull. I bolt upright and feel the blood loss instantly. The skeleton’s hand—still clinging to my own—breaks off when I jerk my arm back. It remains intact, bound together with moss and rotting roots. I run my other hand up my calf. The wound’s edges have hardened, making the parameter jagged and flaky, but the inside is deep and wet. White pain flashes through my head and flows through my body in waves. The nausea makes me throw up between my legs.
The skull stares up at me, gap-jawed and concerned. I push it away and it rolls back into its own ribcage. I start the endless trek down the hill toward the car. I take the skeleton hand with me—its bony fingers interlocking with mine make me feel like I have company on this journey, make me feel less alone. The pain threatens to sedate me. I have to hold myself up against trees several times. By the time I pass the tombstones, the first slivers of morning line the horizon.
Still shivering, I take off my jacket to cover the seat of the car. I place the bones in the passenger seat. Early-morning frost blocks the window. I blast the defroster, sit in the car, and close my eyes. I go in and out of consciousness. When I wake up the windows are clear and I’m sweltering. I put the car into drive.
I pass the accident. No one’s been up here yet. The officer’s car remains upside down. Someone else will find it.
Headlights come up behind me. I slow down. A convertible pulls up next to me. The passengers are all well dressed gentlemen, each wearing a jacket and a scarf flapping in the wind. The driver and I make eye contact. He smiles, exposing two razor-sharp and abnormally large teeth. The others smile the same way. The driver hits the gas and the convertible speeds past me. My brother turns around and looks at me from the backseat. The road ahead opens up and drops into a fiery mouth. Every monster imaginable waits down there—all the ghouls, skeletons, werewolves, zombies, and vampires wait in the flames. I follow my brother’s car down and everyone cheers at our arrival.
[rec 00:09:29]
Warm colors sharpen as the focus reveals an image of an empty chair. Then from offscreen, a boy emerges and sits in it. You recognize this boy because he looks like me.
After fidgeting, he speaks.
Boy: My favorite scary movie of all time is John Carpenter’s The Thing. Not only is Kurt Russell a badass in it, but it has some of the most gruesome special effects in movie history. But that’s not what makes it an effective movie. It’s the cold and the isolation. The feeling of loneliness, it’s hard to pull off in film.
At 00:10:14 the image cuts to an over-exposed shot of the park. For a couple of seconds it looks like all the people are lit up with nuclear light, playing games in atomic fallout. The frame shakes while the exposure changes. The grass and sky return to their natural hue; people look safe from skin-burning radiation. Children offscreen laugh and shout; some of them scream…
Hospital
Ally stands at the door in a black hoodie and pajama bottoms. She holds a plastic grocery bag at her waist with both hands.
“Can I come in?” She bites her lip.
I nod and wave her over. I can’t do much more than whisper. She inspects my IV and flicks the bag holding the medicine.
“Stop it,” I say.
“I saw your parents on the way out. They looked good.”
“Yeah, they’re all right.”
“Were they mad?”
“Not yet.” I pause and hallucinate little red hearts dancing around her face. “It was an old car anyway. I think they were just happy that I’m not dead.”
“They’re calling you a hero,” she says.
“Who?”
“The news and stuff.”
“For what?”
“You know, finding the kids”
“Psh, I’m no hero,” I say, but my modesty is betrayed by burning cheeks.
“That’s what I said.” Her smile stretches until her eyes are nearly closed. She takes my hand in hers, and I let myself sink into the comfortable bed, deeper and deeper. I feel her hand tighten and I emerge from the fog. “So, what’d you tell them?” she asks.
“Tell who what?”
“Your parents, everybody. What did you see up there?”
I tell her the truth: “I don’t know.” Ally nods, accepting the answer that the doctors, police and my parents can’t.
“Some people still think it was the sheriff,” she says.
“It’s a free country. People can think what they want.”
“And they’re burning the forest around the cemetery, trying to smoke the wolves or bears or whatever out. You should see it. The whole mountain is on fire.” Skeptical emphasis laces her words, and I would reach up and hug her if I wasn’t so weak. I can’t help but smile at the thought of adults doing stupid things in the name of fear. It’s comforting.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” I nod to the bag in her hands. “What’s that?”
“Oh these?” She holds the bag to my face. I pull away from the severe edges sticking through plastic. Videocassettes.
“Oh.”
Her smile disappears. “Oh? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t think I can watch those anymore.”
She looks like she wants to say something, but then stops herself. Her face relaxes, but the hurt remains.
“I’m sorry.”
“Just kidding.”
“You!—” She pauses and looks around. “Fucker!” She says it right when my nurse enters the room. The nurse gasps. She turns around, and leaves, embarrassed.
“No, wait!” I say, then to Ally: “Go grab her. They have to have a VCR somewhere in this old dump.”
Ally runs out into the hall and yells in the direction of the nurse’s retreat. “We need five CCs of VCR, stat!” She claps her hands twice to accentuate the annoyance. “Chop, chop!”
Moments later, they roll in an ancient TV with a built-in VCR. The screen’s not more than 10x10 inches. The picture is washed out; the blood’s orange. It’s okay because I’ve seen these movies a thousand times.
We talk along with the dialogue and cover our ears at the tense parts because the surprising sounds make us jump.
We watch the most violent fucking shit until the nurse wakes us and tells Ally to go home.
November
It’s called “communal mourning,” a gentler way to say “mass burial.” We drive to the next closest cemetery, twenty miles away, because the police have taped off the road leading to Silver Creek’s, which by now is a smoldering wasteland. I’m pretty sure the only person who will ever set foot in that place again will be Colt. Finally, a Hell suitable enough for him.
Dad unfolds the wheelchair before helping me out of the car. The painkillers I’m on make this seem like the ultimate act of affection. Mom watches as Dad adjusts my legs onto the footrests. She lifts her glasses and dabs at her eyes with a Kleenex. Her dress is simple and black, but despite her drab attire, I can’t remember the last time she’s looked this alive.
It’s a massive turnout—nearly half the town. People keep crowding around the wheelchair, trying to shake my hand.
“Please back off,” Dad says, gently but firmly. “This is not the place. He’s been through a lot. We all have.”
The priest stands at a podium and delivers a eulogy for all the dead chil
dren. A couple local television crews stand in the outskirts. I see a cameraman inconspicuously filming the crowd, trying to get an artsy shot with a tombstone in the foreground. I want to grab the camera away and show him how it’s done.
After the eulogy, everyone disperses to pay respects to the individual graves. The wheelchair rolls easily over the dead grass. Dad pushes me swiftly through the thinning crowd. In my mind, I make racecar sounds. Oh, painkillers, I think.
We arrive at Brian’s casket—shiny, black and monumental. My parents didn’t skimp.
A cloud rolls across the sun, turns the entire cemetery gray. The flowers on the casket shiver in the wind. Dad hunches deeper into his collar and puts an arm around Mom. She leans into him and they both cry. The temperature turns bitter cold and the wind kicks up, whipping an occasional snowflake sideways. I can’t help but think this is somehow Brian’s doing. Pride swells in my chest at the thought of my brother’s new power to make things chilly.
Harried cemetery attendants rush to remove the flowers. They hit the lever on the silver frame surrounding the grave and Brian’s casket lowers into the ground. I reach into my pocket and touch the bony tip of Brian’s thumb—the last remnant of the skeletal hand that accompanied me in the graveyard. Unaccounted for in the car crash, it somehow ended up in my pocket. I keep it as a lucky charm.
I look up and see Ally and her parents on the other side of grave, slowly revealed by the descending casket. Black tendrils of mascara run down her face and I realize it’s first time I’ve seen her wear makeup. I wave, but the wind pushes her hair across her face before I can see her response. Then, Dad’s pushing me, running to get us out of the cold.
***
After the funeral, a memorial service is held at a nearby non-denominational church. Black-suited strangers sip lemon-flavored beverages out of plastic cups and eat frosted animal cookies off of napkins. Everyone’s face looks like it’s filled with cement. It’s a smaller crowd than what was at the cemetery. I suspect a lot of people ducked out before the weather got worse. No sign of Ally, so I wheel myself into a corner with a good view out the window. A thin layer of snow has splattered the side of every car in the parking lot, blasted like a zombie headshot. I replay an image in my mind: Ally, revealed by a casket.
Badass, I think. It’s definitely going in the script.
I feel a hand on my shoulder and jump. Old Hilborn stands above me. He leans down.
“I know what you saw,” he says. “Up there in the graveyard.” White hairs sprout out of his head like corn silk and do nothing to cover his pink skull. This close, his eyes look faded, like that of a dead man. “Nobody else will believe you, but I know.”
I crane my neck to find my parents. No sign of them. His fingers dig into my shoulder. “Listen to me,” he says. His lips curl back, revealing a black-gummed smile. He cocks his head to the side, and stares at me with that terrible smile frozen on his face. “I know what you saw because I saw it too.”
I wriggle out of his grasp. “Excuse me,” I say, my voice breaking. “I need to—”
“It was in my backyard last night.” The smile pulls higher on his face, stretching the skin across his skull. His pupils shrink to dots. “The dead cop, he was in my backyard last night,” he says.
My throat feels hot. “That’s not what I saw,” I whisper.
“Maybe not,” he says. “Or maybe it just found a new home.” The smile falls. His eyes get wide. He pulls me close. “Sometimes it rests, but it never goes away.
“Leave me alone,” I plead.
“It never goes away,” Hilborn repeats. “ I saw that dead cop in my backyard last night. His eyes were black as hell. Jagged, long teeth. He was eating my kitty cats. Taking big bites out of their furry little necks.”
Dad appears behind Hilborn. “What’s going on here?”
“Can we go home now?” I ask. “I’m not feeling well.”
“Sure, bud.” Hilborn steps out of the way for Dad to take hold of the wheelchair.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Nightshade,” Hilborn says.
“Thank you,” Dad mumbles. He pushes me toward the exit, putting as much space between us and the old man as possible. Hilborn never takes his eyes off me. That smile.
In the car, Dad asks, “What was that all about? What did he say to you?”
“Nothing,” I say. “That guy’s crazy. Doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Jason,” Mom says. “That’s not nice.”
“I’m with Jason,” Dad says. “He gives me the creeps.”
A noticeable shiver runs through Dad. Mom puts her hand on his back when he leans forward to see through the snow pummeling the windshield.
December
Night falls and brings a dancing blizzard. I sit in my room and listen to the wind blow snow against the house. It’s warm under the blankets, and I pick up the yellow notepad that I keep by my bed. The monsters in my posters wait patiently while I get into a comfortable writing position. The muscle in my calf twists, and I suck air through my teeth, but it’s only a fleeting pain. Across the room, the crack in my closet door watches me too. And that’s fine. My parents’ footsteps beat softly on the ceiling above me.
After some deliberation, I write this down:
INT: DETECTIVE RAIMI’S HOUSE, DAY
RAIMI kicks open the door to his house, gun drawn and ready to go. He looks slightly delirious: a loose cannon. The handheld camera follows him from room to room as he searches frantically for his wife, SISSY.
RAIMI
Sissy! Where are you baby?
RAIMI runs upstairs and kicks through the door to his bedroom. Inside the room, TED is holding SISSY with a knife to her throat. He laughs and SISSY struggles to get free.
RAIMI
(Struggling to control his rage) Listen Ted, you don’t have to do this.
TED
You’re right, I didn’t have to do this. I gave you the chance. But you fucked it up. Now, you’re going to watch as I cut up your little wifey in front of your eyes! (He draws a sliver of blood from SISSY’S neck)
RAIMI
Wait! Look. (He raises his hands to show no gun) You’re right, you’ve always been right.
TED
(Stops cutting) What are you talking about?
RAIMI
Like you said: we’re not different, you and I.
TED’s smile wavers.
RAIMI (Cont’d)
I have been lying to myself: I’ve been thinking about nothing but myself, about my job, when all you needed was someone to care. To show affection. To be a brother.
TED
Well, it doesn’t mean anything now.
RAIMI
You mean you’re not interested in being me? (Beat) Because I could definitely use a break.
TED
From being you?
RAIMI
Exactly.
TED
Well, what do you suggest?
RAIMI
Why don’t we team up? I can be you and you can be me! You commit the crimes and I’ll hunt you. Or the other way around! We’ll BOTH be famous. Don’t you see? We’ll show how big of a joke this fucking police force is.
TED
I don’t know.
RAIMI
And it might even be fun. Think of it: WE ARE THE SAME. We’ll split it all 50/50. The fame. The notoriety. And you wouldn’t be doing it alone this time, you’ll have a partner.
TED thinks about it and lowers the blade from SISSY’S throat, who has been squealing the entire time. RAIMI has hit something deep inside TED, who is dealing with the conflict. We do this with a slow zoom in on TED’S face.
TED
Do you really mean that? Brother?
CUT TO: RAIMI, who has pulled his revolver out.
RAIMI
No. And don’t call me brother.
RAIMI fires a round and hits TED directly in the shoulder, send
ing him spinning. Blood sprays across the wall. SISSY flees from his grasp and into RAIMI’S arms.
TED
(Gasping) What are you doing? You’re top cop! You can’t lay a finger on me!
RAIMI cocks his gun.
TED (cont’d)
Wait, no, you can’t do this!
RAIMI
Yes I can. Consider this my retirement.
RAIMI fires the gun and blows TED’S brains all over the wall. SISSY says something and RAIMI says something else. They kiss. They wrap it up. Credits roll.
THE END
I place the pencil on the nightstand and read the last two words over again.
Next spring, if I’m all healed up, I’ll finish filming it. I look to the motionless camera sitting on my dresser and think, Yeah, definitely next spring.
The wind blows. No one walks around upstairs. By now everyone has gone to sleep. I place the notepad on the nightstand and reach out for the switch on my lamp. I stop. Something scratches on the window from outside. I roll out of bed and limp to the window.
Boot prints litter the snow. They come from the road, up to my window, and disappear out into the night. A cautious minivan inches past my house, but the headlights don’t reveal anything.
I go to bed and let the light from the street shine through the smiley face scratched into the frost of my window.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS