The Crimes of Orphans

by Obie Williams

  “Come play with me.”

  The boy covered his eyes and shook his head. “Leave me be!” This was not the first time he had heard such things. Maybe half a dozen times in as many years he had sworn a voice called to him from up there. He had told himself it was just in his mind. His mind missing his brother. But in all this time he had never stepped foot on a single one of those steps again. Not since descending them covered in his brother’s blood. Not since the day they buried him out back by the stables.

  Father had knocked him around the living room something good that day. After he watched his brother die, after sitting there with him in his lap until he grew cold, he went to the bottom floor and told Father. Told him that he wasn’t moving, that he wouldn’t get up. It was the only time he had ever seen the man cry. He cried and hit him a few times, then collapsed to his knees and cried some more. To this day the boy wondered if Father even realized that it was he who had done it. It was as though he had chosen to forget it. The boy supposed he would too, if he could.

  Dropping his hands from his face, the boy looked back towards the doorway to the first floor, holding his breath as he listened for any sign of movement. When nothing came to his ears, so he slowly turned his gaze up towards the stairway again.

  “Only to the top to see what is there, then straight back down,” he whispered to himself, and began hurriedly ascending the stairs.

  Coming to the top floor, the boy felt his stomach getting cold, his heart sinking at the sight of this long expanse of walls and floorboards again. The most horrible moments of his life had been spent up here, and he immediately questioned why he would step foot in this place again.

  But there was that curiosity. That little part of him that remained from years ago. Perhaps the only part of his childish nature that had not died with his brother or been killed by Father in the years since.

  It was that curiosity that drove him forward, propelling him down the hall towards the door. His eyes scanned over the top of the sideboard as he passed it by. Its surface was still empty; the vase had never been replaced. He supposed he could never fit in that cabinet now, and that thought made him pause to listen for Father once again.

  In that second he nearly turned back. Almost headed back on his way out of this place. But one more glance at the door effectively sealed his fate as that last burst of curiosity pushed him forward.

  Coming to the door, he stared down at its knob, but didn’t bother reaching for it. He knew it was locked. Father still came up here from time to time, but only when he thought that the boy didn’t know any better, especially late at night. The boy had slipped out of his room long after his bedtime one night to get a glass of water. On his way back, he had to duck behind the china cabinet as he watched Father come out of his bedroom and head up those stairs.

  But now the hallway was his, the door his. One good kick would reveal its contents and he could be on his way. No more secrets, no more tortured dreams. He could let it all go and be free of this for good.

  His eyes slipped closed in that last moment, as if he couldn’t do it while looking. Taking in a deep breath, he raised his foot and thrust it out. He felt it connect, heard a crack, then a creak, then a slam. He felt warmth rush over him from beyond the door. It was there, laid out for him to see. All he had to do was open his eyes.

  But he couldn’t. Much as he wanted to see what the room had to offer, he couldn’t bring himself to look. He felt as though he would be defying his big brother if he looked. He had told him not to peek, told him to get out of there, told him to run. How could he have come this far? How could he have refused his brother’s dying wish? How could he…

  Then he heard a rattling of metal, and his eyes snapped open.

  For a long moment his mind refused to believe what his eyes were seeing. Were she not moving, he would have taken the young woman to be a corpse. Her pallid flesh seemed to cling tightly to nothing but bones, her long arms extending from a simple white dress speckled brown with dried blood. Her slender wrists were tightly bound with heavy metal shackles, long chains running up from them and connecting to a large ring bolted above the roaring fireplace. She was nearly a silhouette, sitting on her knees in that light, but behind her stringy blonde hair and above her emaciated cheekbones, he could see her crystal blue eyes. They were staring straight at him.

  Her chains rattled as her hands reached out as far as they could, bony fingers extending to him, imploring him to come closer. Her eyes softened, pleading with him. Her alabaster lips parted, and in a voice that sounded like a sweet melody played through rattling bones, she said, “Is that my son I see?”

  “M-Mother?” the boy whimpered. He didn’t remember her, at least not in the strictest sense. He had vague recollections of her beautiful voice singing him to sleep and her soft skin and sweet smell as she rocked him in a big wooden chair, but that was all. The rest had been filled in by his brother in the short time they spent together.

  Father had been better when Mother had been around, he’d always say. Not perfect, but better. He never saw Father hit her, and they loved each other, and she protected them as best she could.

  But around the time the boy was one and his brother was five, Father and Mother had gone out one night and by morning there was only Father left. He told them nothing, but days later the parish priest had come to inform his brother that she’d been killed in some kind of accident, though never said what. She was just…gone.

  But not gone. Because here she had been this whole time. Here waiting for him to rescue her, so they could run away together and have a nice home and she could rock him again. Rock him and sing him to sleep. Hold him and make him feel warm with her soft skin, the way she used to. She would make him remember again. She would make him happy again.

  He was in a daze now as walked towards her, arms outstretched. Slipping down to his knees, he fell into her arms and laid his head on her shoulder, his eyes falling shut. He felt her gentle touch on the back of his head, caressing his hair as she whispered to him.

  “Shhh, Mother’s here now. You need not be afraid.”

  But his stomach suddenly told him something was very wrong. If his brother had seen her in here, why had he run away? If she was alive, why had she been locked up here all these years? If she was holding him, why wasn’t he warm?

  He opened his eyes and looked up at her, but she was not the same. Her crystal blue eyes had become yellow and wild, like that of an animal bearing down on its next kill. Her lips curled open into a wide grin, and to the boy’s horror, he saw her teeth had become sharp, glistening fangs.

  “Mother is here now,” she hissed, and the boy tried to pull away. Her hand tightened on his hair and she yanked his head to the side. He felt a tearing pain, followed by dizziness, and then blackness.

  “My God, what have you done?”

  The room was spinning as the boy came to, but his senses immediately sharpened at the sight of Father standing in the open doorway. He was banged up pretty bad, arms all scraped and a deep gouge above his eyebrow. Groaning, the boy turned his head to the other side, looking up at the woman he thought was his mother. She sat in front of the fire staring at Father with a confused look on her face.

  “I thought he was meant to be my dinner.”

  “Why in God’s name would you…” Father shook his head, a pained expression on his face. “After everything I have done for you, keeping you here and safe after what you turned into, you repay me by taking our last child?”

  The boy didn’t understand what was happening. He hadn’t been taken anywhere. He did feel strange, though. He was having a hard time making sense of anything. But as the two of them spoke, he slowly pushed himself to his knees.

  “I…I wanted someone to play with. I wanted to—” Mother began, but her words were cut off when Father strode across the room and delivered a backhand to her cheek.

  “Enough!” he yelled. Turning his eyes to the boy, Father retrieved his whip from his belt and took a few st
eps back. “It appears I will have to take care of you now.”

  The boy just sat there on his knees, blankly staring at the floor. Somehow, all the fight had fallen out of him. He wanted to die. In fact, somewhere inside he felt like he was already on his way. He didn’t quite know what Father meant about her taking him, but he didn’t really care. He just wanted this to end so he could finally be with his brother and be left alone.

  The hiss cut through the air and the boy felt searing pain slice into his chest and down to his abdomen. Blood immediately soaked his now-torn shirt, but he didn’t even flinch. He just wanted it over. This angered Father, of course, and he quickly drew back and struck again. The second lash cut across the boy the other way, into his chest and stomach again, but he again made no noise, and no tears fell.

  “Scream, damn you!” Father cried out, drawing his whip back once more.

  But the boy would not scream. He would not cry. He would not beg. He welcomed it. Just as soon as he could have that blackness, all of this would finally be over. And just as he wished it, that prayer began to be answered. The whip lashed out again, this time slinging around the back of his neck and curling tightly about his throat. Father tugged on it, and the leather pulled tight, cinching the boy’s windpipe closed. His face grew hot and his chest heaved. His eyes drifted closed, and when he felt that darkness beginning to surround him, he opened his arms, inviting it in.

  “I did not want this,” Father said. The boy thought he sounded far away now. “You brought this on yourself, just as your brother did.”

  His eyes snapped open and the sense of defeat was gone. There was no more pain, no more angst. He no longer wished it over or begged for his own death. In the instant that those words filled his ear, something new came over him. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t instinct. It was something deeper and far more powerful than any of that. It exploded inside him like a fire, rushing into his veins and fingers and heart. It filled his body with heat, with life, with power.

  The boy glared up at his father, and the man froze at the sight of his own son’s eyes. Those eyes weren’t scared. Those eyes weren’t pleading. Those eyes weren’t even blue. Glowing with turbulent violet energy, those eyes were murderous.

  The boy brought one foot up, rose to one knee, then pushed himself to his feet. Enraged, glowing eyes locked on his father, he balled his fists at his sides and began pulling back against the whip. His own eyes widening, Father tightened his grip on the handle and pulled back himself. The boy could feel the whip tightening around his throat, but he still took a defiant step back, then another, then another. Father could feel his feet sliding forward, so he yanked back harder. Mother sat before the fire silently, grinning and watching the violent tug of war, just waiting for delicious blood to be spilt. She didn’t rightly care from whom.

  Leaning back now, the boy heard noises coming from the taut leather. First a groan, then a tearing, and then a loud snap. In a flash of white, searing pain, the vision in the boy’s left eye disappeared completely for a moment, and he felt warmth begin trickling down his face. Both father and son stumbled backwards when the weapon broke. The boy’s back hit a wall and he immediately pushed off it, propelling himself straight for Father in a blind rage. As he moved, he ripped the tattered remnant of the whip from his throat and, without thinking about it, shoved it in his pocket.

  Eyes filling with fear mirroring that which he’d created in his sons so many times, Father fumbled for his belt, looking for another weapon. Before he had time, his son’s hand encircled his throat and he felt his back slam against the far wall. Even so, he continued to scramble, trying to obtain a means by which to defend himself.

  His hand finally found his sheathe, but found it empty.

  “Is this what you wanted?” the boy asked, leaning forward and raising the blade of that fine silver dagger to touch the man’s cheek. “Is this what you were reaching for, dear Father?” His eyes were more brilliant than ever now, that violet glow surrounding the blackness of his pupils, staring into the trembling eyes of the man who gave him life and took his brother’s. “Well why don’t you take it?”

  The blade went in smoothly, even easily, much to the boy’s surprise. It slipped into Father’s lower abdomen, just below the navel. The man gasped, his eyes widening and filling with tears, Adam’s apple jumping up and down.

  “Do you feel it now, Father? Do you feel what he felt? The pain? The fear? Knowing that you’re going to die?” the boy’s tone was even and calm, but with an undertone that matched neither that nor the rage in his eyes. It was malice, slithering there just beneath the surface of his words. “Before you do, Father, I want you to know one more thing. Do you know what that is?”

  His breath coming in hitching half-gasps, Father strained to look at the boy, his vision already beginning to fade in and out. “Wh-Wha…” he gasped painfully.

  The boy leaned in so close his lips brushed Father’s ear as he whispered, “I’m not afraid of you anymore.” With that, he yanked the knife straight up and out, and felt the warmth of Father’s intestines spill over his shoes just before the man’s eyes rolled back and he slumped to the floor.

  As the boy stepped back, the rage fell away, and his eyes returned to normal. Dizziness set in immediately, and he stumbled against the wall by the door. Breathing heavily, he raised his eyes to look over towards his mother, who was sitting there, smiling at him.

  “Now we can be together, love. We can be together forever. Just let me go and we’ll be together,” she said in a sweet voice. It was seductive, and it might have drawn the boy in, were it not for the fact that it still whistled through that bed of bones.

  Taking one step back out into the hallway, the boy looked up to the oil lamp in the corner. Reaching for it, he unscrewed the oil font from the underside of the fixture, then looked back to that animated corpse of a woman.

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” he said softly.

  “Son, what are you—”

  The boy drew back with the font, and threw it across the room. It shattered in the fireplace with a blinding explosion, instantly engulfing the creature that was once his mother, along with half the small room.

  Her screams echoed behind him as he slowly moved down the hallway and descended the stairs. By the second flight her cries had ceased, and the boy felt himself growing weak. He wanted to stop, to just lie down and go to sleep. But he knew that if he didn’t get out of this house, he would never wake up again.

  Crawling over the destroyed remnants of the china cabinet strewn about the bottom half of the stairs, the boy finally found himself in the sitting room once more. Standing still for a moment, he listened to the house. He could already hear the fire crackling upstairs, quickly moving across the walls, devouring this hateful place from the inside out. His eyes scanned over the home where he’d been born and raised, finally coming to rest on an oval mirror that hung on the wall between the sofa and the kitchen door.

  Approaching it, he gazed at his reflection for the last time. He almost didn’t recognize what he saw. The boy there was pallid and shimmering with sweat that matted his hair to his forehead. His left eye was a horror to behold, a deep bloody gash crossing over it from his forehead to his cheek. The only things he found familiar were his deep blue eyes. When he looked into them, he felt he was looking into the eyes of his big brother. A sense of assurance washed over him from somewhere he didn’t know or understand. It told him that no matter what he became, those eyes would never truly change, and so his brother would always be there. Always.

  Taking a deep breath, he left that place behind and headed out into the snow. The light was fading out there, the sun just now dropping to the horizon. Woods surrounded most of the residence, but just in front of him was a large clearing that afforded a view of rolling hills below, offering a magnificent look at a dozing sky splashed with wondrous color. His brother once told him that Mother loved to come out here and watch the sunset; she would sing them lullabies while the sky turned dark. />
  He began to trudge through the snow, but didn’t make it far before he collapsed to his knees. As he gazed upon that last sunset of his life, the reds and oranges and pinks seemed more vibrant than he had ever known. They radiated out to him with their brilliance, telling him sweet lies of a life set before him with opportunities like happiness and love.

  By this time tomorrow, his body would already be changing. It would age rapidly until it reached the perfect physical form for a predator. He would be a killer, a monster of the most unimaginable sort. But in his last few moments of humanity, he was just a boy. A boy who had taken a stand against everything he feared, and had finally been set free.

  SIXTEEN

  I

  “Well this is fucking fantastic.”

  Lita was standing in the center of the mausoleum between its two stone coffins. Her hands rested on her hips and she squinted as she peered about, trying to make out the fine details of their prison. Though her eyes were almost fully adjusted now, it was still pretty damn dark in here.

  Rain, on the other hand, was making his way meticulously along the walls, examining every stone and crack he could find, looking for a weak spot or anything else that might facilitate their escape. He paused long enough to pay her a glance. “You could probably be doing more than standing around right now.”

  Lita quirked a brow. “And what do you suggest I do, Rain? Unless you’ve got a pickaxe hidden in that coat of yours, we’re not going a damn place until 8 o’clock.”

  He turned around to face her. “You’re saying there’s no way we can get that door open without setting off what he put out there?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe, but I’m sure as hell not lining up to try. Look, I’m sorry that I pulled you into this, but there’s not a lot either of us can do about that now. So what I’m going to do is try to enjoy the peace and quiet until this evening, and assuming that charge doesn’t bring this entire building down on our heads, I’m going to pack up and put all of this in my rearview mirror.”