by David Nickle
“Roots!” gasped Mrs. Sloan, her voice shrill and echoing in the dark. “Of course there would be — ” she broke into another fit of giggles “ — roots, here in the root cellar!” The light jagged across the cellar’s surfaces as Mrs. Sloan slipped to the floor and fell into another fit of laughter.
Judith bent down and pried the flashlight from Mrs. Sloan’s hand — she made a face as she brushed the scratchy tips of the two bare finger-bones. She swept the beam slowly across the ceiling.
It was a living thing. Pulsing intestinal ropes drooped from huge bulbs and broad orange phalluses clotted with earth and juices thick as semen. Between them, fingerlike tree roots bent and groped in knotted black lines. One actually penetrated a bulb, as though to feed on the sticky yellow water inside. Silvery droplets formed like beading mercury on the surface of an ample, purple sac directly above the chamber’s centre.
Mrs. Sloan’s laughter began to slow. “Oh my,” she finally chuckled, sniffing loudly, “I don’t know what came over me.”
“This is the place.” Judith had intended it as a question, but it came out as a statement of fact. This was the place. She could feel Herman, his father, God knew how many others like them — all of them here, an indisputable presence.
Mrs. Sloan stood, using the axe-handle as a support. “It is,” she agreed. “We’d better get to work on it.”
Mrs. Sloan hefted the axe in both hands and swung it around her shoulders. Judith stood back and watched as the blade bit into one of the drooping ropes, not quite severing it but sending a spray of green sap down on Mrs. Sloan’s shoulders. She pulled the axe out and swung again. This time the tube broke. Its two ends twitched like live electrical wires; its sap spewed like bile. Droplets struck Judith, and where they touched skin they burned like vinegar.
“Doesn’t it feel better?” shouted Mrs. Sloan, grinning fiercely at Judith through the wash of slime on her face. “Don’t you feel free? Put down the flashlight, girl, pick up the shovel! There’s work to be done!”
Judith set the flashlight down on its end, so that it illuminated the roots in a wide yellow circle. She hefted the shovel and, picking the nearest bulb, swung it up with all her strength. The yellow juices sprayed out in an umbrella over Judith, soaking her. She began to laugh.
It does feel better, she thought. A lot better. Judith swung the shovel up again and again. The blade cut through tubes, burst bulbs, lodged in the thick round carrot-roots deep enough so Judith could pry them apart with only a savage little twist of her shoulders. The mess of her destruction was everywhere. She could taste it every time she grinned.
After a time, she noticed that Mrs. Sloan had stopped and was leaning on the axe-handle, watching her. Judith yanked the shovel from a root. Brown milk splattered across her back.
“What are you stopping for?” she asked. “There’s still more to cut!”
Mrs. Sloan smiled in the dimming light — the flashlight, miraculously enough, was still working, but its light now had to fight its way through several layers of ooze.
“I was just watching you, dear,” she said softly.
Judith turned her ankle impatiently. The chamber was suddenly very quiet. “Come on,” said Judith. “We can’t stop until we’re finished.”
“Of course.” Mrs. Sloan stood straight and swung the axe up again. It crunched into a wooden root very near the ceiling, and Mrs. Sloan pried it loose. “I think that we’re very nearly done, though. At least, that’s the feeling I get.”
Judith didn’t smile — she suddenly felt very cold inside.
“No, we’re not,” she said in a low voice, “we’re not done for a long time yet. Keep working.”
Mrs. Sloan had been right, though. There were only a half-dozen intact roots on the cellar ceiling, and it took less than a minute for the two women to cut them down. When they stopped, the mess was up to their ankles and neither felt like laughing. Judith shivered, the juices at once burning and chilling against her skin.
“Let’s get out of this place,” said Mrs. Sloan. “There’s dry clothes back at the house.”
The flashlight died at the base of the ladder, its beam flickering out like a dampened candle flame. It didn’t matter, though. The sky was a square of deepening purple above them, and while they might finish the walk back in the dark they came out of the root cellar in time to bask in at least a sliver of the remaining daylight. The weeds atop the mound were still as the first evening stars emerged and the line of orange to the west sucked itself back over the treetops.
Mrs. Sloan talked all the way back, her continual chatter almost but not quite drowning out Judith’s recollections. She mostly talked about what she would do with her new freedom: first, she’d take the pickup and drive it back to the city where she would sell it. She would take the money, get a place to live and start looking for a job. As they crested the ridge of bedrock, Mrs. Sloan asked Judith if there was much call for three-fingered manicurists in the finer Toronto salons, then laughed in such a girlish way that Judith wondered if she weren’t walking with someone other than Mrs. Sloan.
“What are you going to do, now that you’re free?” asked Mrs. Sloan.
“I don’t know,” Judith replied honestly.
The black pickup was parked near the end of the driveway. Its headlights were on, but when they checked, the cab was empty.
“They may be inside,” Mrs. Sloan whispered. “You were right, Judith. We’re not done yet.”
Mrs. Sloan led Judith to the kitchen door around the side of the house. It wasn’t locked, and together they stepped into the kitchen. The only light came from the half-open refrigerator door. Judith wrinkled her nose. A carton of milk lay on its side, and milk dripped from the countertop to a huge puddle on the floor. Cutlery was strewn everywhere.
Coming from somewhere in the house, Judith thought she recognized Herman’s voice. It was soft, barely a whimper. It sounded as though it were coming from the living room.
Mrs. Sloan heard it too. She hefted the axe in her good hand and motioned to Judith to follow as she stepped silently around the spilled milk. She clutched the doorknob to the living room in a three-fingered grip, and stepped out of the kitchen.
Herman and his father were on the couch, and they were in bad shape. Both were bathed in a viscous sweat, and they had bloated so much that several of the buttons on Herman’s shirt had popped and Mr. Sloan’s eyes were swollen shut.
And where were their noses?
Judith shuddered. Their noses had apparently receded into their skulls. Halting breaths passed through chaffed-red slits with a wet buzzing sound.
Herman looked at Judith. She rested the shovel’s blade against the carpet. His eyes were moist, as though he’d been crying.
“You bastard,” whispered Mrs. Sloan. “You took away my life. Nobody can do that, but you did. You took away everything.”
Mr. Sloan quivered, like gelatin dropped from a mould.
“You made me touch you . . .” Mrs. Sloan stepped closer “. . . worship you . . . you made me lick up after you, swallow your filthy, inhuman taste . . . And you made me like it!”
She was shaking almost as much as Mr. Sloan, and her voice grew into a shrill, angry shout. Mr. Sloan’s arms came up to his face, and a high, keening whistle rose up. Beside him, Herman sobbed. He did not stop looking at Judith.
Oh, Herman, Judith thought, her stomach turning. Herman was sick, sicker than Judith had imagined. Had he always been this bad? Judith couldn’t believe that. Air whistled like a plea through Herman’s reddened nostrils.
“Well, no more!” Mrs. Sloan raised the axe over her head so that it jangled against the lighting fixture in the ceiling. “No more!”
Judith lifted up the shovel then, and swung with all her strength. The flat of the blade smashed against the back of Mrs. Sloan’s skull.
Herman’s sobbing stretched into a wail, and Judith swung the shovel once more. Mrs. Sloan dropped the axe beside her and crumpled to the carpeted floor.
The telephone in Judith’s parents’ home rang three times before the answering machine Judith had bought them for Christmas switched on. Judith’s mother began to speak, in a timed, halting monotone: “Allan . . . and . . . I are . . . not . . .”
Judith smoothed her hair behind her ears, fingers tapping impatiently at her elbow until the message finished. She nearly hung up when the tone sounded, but she shut her eyes and forced herself to go through with it.
“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.” Her voice was small, and it trembled. “It’s me. I know you’re pretty mad at me, and I just wanted to call and say I was sorry. I know that what we did — what Herman and I did, mostly me — I know it was wrong. I know it was sick, okay? Dad, you were right about that. But I’m not going to do that stuff anymore. I’ve got control of my life, and . . . of my body. God, that sounds like some kind of feminist garbage, doesn’t it? Control of my body. But it’s true.” With her foot, Judith swung the kitchen door shut. The gurgling from upstairs grew quieter.
“Oh, by the way, I’m up at Herman’s parents’ place now. It’s about three hours north of you guys, outside a town called Fenlan. You should see it up here, it’s beautiful. I’m going to stay here for awhile, but don’t worry, Herman and I will have separate bedrooms.” She smiled. “We’re going to save ourselves.”
Judith turned around so that the telephone cord wrapped her body, and she leaned against the stove.
“Mom,” she continued, “do you remember what you told me about love? I do. You told me there were two stages. There was the in-love feeling, the one that you get when you meet a guy, he’s really cute and everything, and you just don’t want to be away from him. And then that goes away, and remember what you said? ‘You’d better still love him after that,’ you told me. ‘Even though he’s not so cute, even though maybe he’s getting a little pot belly, even though he stops sending you flowers, you’d better still love him like there’s no tomorrow.’ Well Mom, guess what?”
The answering machine beeped again and the line disconnected.
“I do,” finished Judith.
Janie and the Wind
The eaves of Mr. Swayze’s island lodge rattled like soup bones loose in a bin. There was a wind up — a wind roaring across the bay that shook the eaves — a wind that’d knock you down where you stood, if you hadn’t a grip on something solid. It’d knock you down like Janie’d been knocked down herself not long past; except Janie’d have been able to get up right away if it were just the wind, and not her husband Ernie who’d done it to her.
Ernie had hit her bad, worse than usual. And Janie didn’t know why, which also wasn’t usual.
She was looking at the stem of a birch tree, cut short for the leg of Mr. Swayze’s coffee table, and past it to the big front window — which ought to be boarded up, the way the sky was rolling and darkening beyond it. She was on the floor, and her chest hurt and when she tried to swallow her neck felt like a needle was in it, and her head was in some stickiness that Janie figured was some of her own blood.
Why’d Ernie hit her like that?
It wasn’t like she’d been up to anything, after all. She was just looking through one of Mr. Swayze’s little story magazines, the ones that he sometimes wrote for. Her reading was getting better, improving each year, and the magazine had pictures at the front of each story, which gave her a good clue what ones she’d enjoy. Janie’d found one with a pretty girl and what looked like a horse but it had a long, corkscrew horn coming out of its head, which reminded her of something —
— and then her husband Ernie’d showed up.
He was supposed to be out fishing. That’s what he spent the days at, for the entire week they were at Mr. Swayze’s lodge on Georgian Bay.
Sky had been clear when Ernie stepped inside. Janie hadn’t heard the boat, but she was getting going in her story so she maybe wasn’t too attentive. The door rattled closed, and Ernie cleared his throat.
“Hi,” said Janie. She placed her magazine down on her page. Ernie stepped out of the doorway, and scratched at his neck. Sunlight made the hair there glow like copper.
“You hold still now, Janie,” he said.
Janie did like she was told — but it puzzled her. Ernie would only say that, in the way he just said it, when she got to one of her spells and was set to do herself some harm.
“I’m just readin’,” said Janie. She stood and held up her magazine, cover-out, to prove it.
“Hold still.” Ernie was born with sad eyes. They drooped at the corners like he was going to cry. And his mouth wasn’t happy either, not as a rule. Janie would smile and frown and cry and yell depending on how she felt, but Ernie only ever looked sad. Janie thought sometimes that Ernie’s face muscles just didn’t work.
“You upset, Ernie?” Janie couldn’t read it from his face, but he was moving funny. His shoulders were bent, and his hands hung from them like hooks on the end of a couple of chains. He was looking right at her.
“Don’t move,” he said.
Then it came to her. Janie put her hand up to her mouth, made a fist and gasped. “You — you see a wasp, don’t you?”
Ernie didn’t answer — just kept coming.
Janie stood still. Jeez Louise, a wasp! Janie’d been stung last summer, out behind Ernie’s shed, and oh! How it’d set her howling! There’d been a whole nest of them, and when she touched it wrong they’d stung her seven times, then spit poison into the sting-holes that made them hurt like the Devil, then stung her some more when she got mad and started whacking at the nest with her shovel. She’d learned her lesson about wasps that day — Ernie’d explained it to her: “Stand still when there’s a wasp around. Stand still, an’ if it gets near you, let it get a sniff and go on its way. It’s more ascared of you than you are of it.”
Janie didn’t think that was possible. But she sure could stand still, scared as she was. She shut her eyes tight and clutched her story magazine to her chest. “Oh, Ernie, get it, get it, get it.”
“I’m sorry, Janie,” he said. “I shouldn’t have eaten it. I was just so hungry, Janie, so hungry. Mr. Swayze said it’d be a good thing, but now it’s in me.”
What’s all that got to do with wasps? she wondered for just a second, before she realized what was what.
He hit her in the stomach first, and she took that hit hard. Usually when Ernie hit her, she’d done something to deserve it, so she’d know it was coming and could prepare herself. But what’d she done? Read a story magazine? She hadn’t broken nothing, hadn’t swore or soiled herself or embarrassed Ernie in the grocery.
Janie bent forward, and as she did her hands came up. The story magazine ripped apart and the pages scattered around the porch-room. It felt like her innards had tore loose inside and she couldn’t even breathe it hurt so bad. She fell on her knees and bit down on her lip.
Ernie cuffed her in the ear. She fell sideways, and her elbow hit the floor first, and that sent a juicy kind of pain up through her shoulder so strong she thought her heart would blow up from it. She put out her hand and managed to hold herself upright, but only barely and not for long.
Because next Ernie kicked that arm out from under her. He was wearing his big work boots, and they added weight enough to the kick that she fell completely.
She rolled onto her back. She was wearing boots too — not as big as Ernie’s, but high and black and plenty hard in the heel — and though she knew better, she used them to kick up at her husband. She caught him in the knee, and it wasn’t the right angle to knock him down, but it sure must’ve hurt. Because he yelled something fierce then — louder even than when he’d chopped near-through his pinkie finger with the wood-axe that time, mad enough to put a bit of fear in her.
He jumped back on one foot, and clutched at the other one with both hands and hopped around some. Janie finally sucked in some air, which was good because her eyes were starting to go all speckly for lack of it, and she started to get up.
She was up on one knee when Ernie let
go of his knee and stopped hollering. His foot dropped to the floor with a thump, and his hands fell back to his sides again. Janie put her other foot beneath her and stood up. Hers and Ernie’s eyes met, and Janie thought again about the wasp rule.
Should have done like I was told, she thought, fear still working at her middle like a little gnawing mouse. Should have kept still.
Let him get his sniff.
Because sad-eyed Ernie didn’t look sad any more. His eyes had lost their droop, and his mouth had managed to turn itself up at the corners, opening a little more than usual in the middle. She’d seen him smile once or twice at least in their twenty years together, but Janie didn’t remember her husband having so many teeth.
He jumped at her.
He came so fast she might as well have had her eyes closed. One second he was standing there grinning, showing off those teeth — the next, he was on top of her, and she was back on the floor. He punched and punched. Lying now on the floor with the sky turning black before her eyes, Janie remembered him hitting her in the stomach, in the ribs, a bad hit to her neck, and then, when she put her wrist up to block him, he bit —
And that was all.
“Ow,” muttered Janie. She brought her hand up to her head, touched it to a crusted-over gash above her ear, and took it away again. She didn’t remember getting that one. Must’ve happened after the neck punch and the bite; in that whole time Janie couldn’t remember when the sky had gone from blue to black.
Janie put the hand underneath her, and pushed herself upright. She was scared that she wouldn’t be able to stand up, and she was a bit dizzy at first. But she shut her eyes and counted to three, and when she opened them again she felt better. She got to her feet and looked around her.
The pages from the story magazine she’d ripped were still on the floor. Some of them had blood on them. There was a lot of blood on the floor where her head had been. The front door from the porch was closed. The floor lamp by the big window had fallen over. When Janie went to pick it up, she looked out and saw that the waves were so big they washed clear over the top of the dock. There was no boat at the dock. So Ernie was gone.