by Ike Hamill
Sitting down, he looked at the clock. He had seventy seconds remaining.
James uncapped the little bottle and began to transfer his solution. His pour was smooth until the first alarm sounded. He sloshed some of his solution on the floor.
“Has to be good enough,” he said. He put the big bottle off to the side and snapped the dropper-cap back on the little bottle. He positioned it near his left hand and picked up the pen.
His second alarm sounded.
James began transcribing.
CHAPTER 3: SEPTEMBER 9
Story — September 9
THE HOUSE SAT FIFTY feet back from the road. Only one window was lit up. At the end of the drive, the door to the mailbox hung open. The barb wire fence on the left side was adorned with chicken feathers. Weeds grew up along the rough cut fence posts.
The man walked up the grassy margin of the gravel drive, so his feet wouldn’t scrape on the stones. He left dark footprints on the dewy grass. One rooster, anxious for the coming dawn, crowed twice as the man made his way.
The man paused and regarded the front porch from the flat stone that sat at the bottom of the stairs. The porch had a swing and two rockers. A cloth doll was the only thing making use of the swinging bench this morning. It lay across the seat with one tiny doll arm hanging over the edge, as if it had fainted.
The man turned and began to walk through the grass, towards the side of the house.
A low picket fence lined with rabbit wire surrounded the garden. He stepped over that. His boots made deep prints in the soft soil as he walked down the row of squash plants. One shoe crushed a cucumber that had strayed out from its vine.
He stepped over the fence at the back of the garden and veered around the bulkhead doors. He paused. The bulkhead had a hasp, but wasn’t locked. In the darkness, the man’s eyes went to the rust-covered hinges. He continued walking.
He stopped at the back porch. It was about half the size of the front porch, and had no chairs or swings. Next to the door, sat an upside-down peach crate. Next to that, the man counted six sets of boots. The two largest sets were about the same size. The rest were considerably smaller. The man considered the possibilities. He sat on the edge of the porch and slid over enough so he could reach the two largest pairs. He flipped them over and stared at the treads. The sky was beginning to brighten, but he had to move his face very close to get any detail. With one hard fingernail, he scraped some dried mud away from the arch. He returned the boots to their proper locations, and stared at the door.
Inside, wooden stairs creaked as someone descended from the second floor quickly. Fast on their heels, another person—this one heavier based on the depth of the creaks—came at a slower pace. The man moved with the speed of a snake and disappeared around the corner of the building. He pressed his back against the house and tilted his head until he could see the porch around the corner.
The screen door banged open, stretching its spring to the limits, and then slapped back into place. A young man took the second set of boots to the edge of the porch and flopped down on his butt. He dragged the boots on and laced them up quickly. He tucked his pants inside the boots and sprang to his feet again. He crossed the dooryard towards the barn. Halfway there, the young man began to whistle.
The man waited at corner.
The spring croaked again as the older man slipped through. He looked old enough to be the boy’s grandfather. He plucked the cap from his head and smoothed his hair back. The older man lowered himself to the peach crate and reached for his boots. His eyes landed on the man at the corner.
The old farmer saw the man for what he was—a snake coiled under a rock, twitching its rattle, and ready to strike. The older man forgot his boots and rose to his feet again. His eyes flicked to his son, who had just reached the barn and taken his whistling through the dark door.
Snake-man regarded the old farmer and waited for him to make the next move.
The rooster crowed.
The farmer made his move. He tugged the screen door open and slipped back into the kitchen. None of his creaky movements had betrayed the speed he possessed. Adrenaline had erased his stiffness, and restored the old farmer’s youth for a second.
Snake-man covered the distance to the door in two long strides. He caught the screen door on its second bounce and squeezed through it to find himself in the country kitchen. It still radiated the family’s heat from supper the night before. It smelled of fresh-baked biscuits and preserves.
The old farmer cocked his rifle and raised it to his shoulder. The barrel pointed directly at the Snake-man.
“Whatever you’re looking for, we don’t have it,” the old farmer said. His voice shook, but his hands were steady. His finger had already squeezed about half the weight of the trigger.
Snake-man didn’t reply. He simply advanced. With a cold flash of blue, he pulled a long hunting knife from the sheath at his hip.
The old farmer pulled the trigger and the gun emitted a loud, dry, CLICK. The old farmer had just enough time to glance at the rifle’s bolt before Snake-man reached him. He didn’t use the blade. The old farmer thrust his rifle with both hands towards Snake-man’s knife. The old farmer successfully pushed the blade away, but that wasn’t Snake-man’s intent.
Instead, Snake-man pushed off with one leg, and raised the other, driving his knee squarely into the old farmer’s crotch.
The air left the old farmer’s lungs with an enormous, “Oooff!” The rifle fell from his hands. It clattered on the wooden floor. Snake-man danced around to the other side of the old farmer and looped his elbow around the old farmer’s neck. The farmer struggled and gagged a little, but the light left his eyes quickly as blood was cut off to his brain. As the farmer’s body went limp, Snake-man eased his grip and let the farmer slip into the deep breathing of the unconscious.
Snake-man lifted the old farmer by his armpits. He raised the old farmer with silent strength and slid him onto the rectangular table. He slid the farmer’s legs around to the end and stretched him out on his back. The farmer’s breath rattled and his eyelids began to flutter.
Snake-man smiled and moved around to the farmer’s head. He laid his forearm across the farmer’s neck and pressed. The farmer fought for consciousness and raised his arms. His fight was short-lived. With the blood flow to his brain interrupted for the second time, the farmer slipped away again. Snake-man leaned in to feel the tickle of the farmer’s breath against his ear. The man was barely clinging to life.
Snake-man moved quickly. He collected the kitchen towels and sliced them into strips with his knife. He tied these together and lashed the farmer to the table by his ankles and wrists. He opened the farmer’s mouth and stuffed the rest of the towels in. The old farmer gagged and began to wake up again.
The old farmer’s eyes darted around. He kept his head still for a second, taking in the scene before he fought to get free. When he realized his predicament, the old farmer thrashed on the table like a fish in the bottom of a boat. Snake-man calmed him down again by showing him the knife and then laying the cold blade against the old farmer’s throat.
Both men froze as they heard a noise from upstairs.
The floor above squeaked with footsteps. After a pause, the steps headed the other direction.
Snake-man leaned in close to the farmer. He inhaled the old man’s scent and frowned in his face. The farmer’s eyes widened as he felt Snake-man’s blade slip under one strap of his overalls. With a flick, the fabric was cut.
# # # # #
James swept over to the next line and anchored his wrist again. He kept the pace of his writing slow and even as he tilted back his head and used his left hand to squirt his homemade eye drops into each eye. The solution burned a little—he would have to throw out the batch and start again in the morning.
At least it worked. He didn’t need to blink too often as he worked. Blinking was torture. Every time his eyelids closed, the details of the scene lit up with terrifying clarity. As long a
s he focused on the words—the ones he wrote and the original, typewritten source—the images were just washed out ghosts. They were thoughts instead of experiences.
# # # # #
The wife came down the stairs with the help of the banister. She turned and stooped to pick up a stick that one of the boys must have kicked under the telephone table. She tucked it into the pocket of her housedress as she pushed back up to her full height of five-foot nothing. She paused until the world stabilized and the black spots stopped swimming in front of her eyes.
She picked up speed as she walked down the hall. Her hands had already begun moving at her waist, getting ready for the morning’s chores. When she came through the doorway to the dim kitchen, she stopped and grabbed the doorframe for stability.
Her husband was there, sprawled out on his back on the kitchen table. His head was raised and equal parts panic and concern were written on his brow. The morning light through the window was pink and orange. It filled the kitchen with a beautiful glow. The warm light made her husband’s naked skin appear rosy and healthy. It usually appeared white and translucent, like a thin-sliced potato.
She took half of a step and saw the rags securing his hands and feet to the legs of the table.
Her brain had automatically labelled the sight of her naked husband as “PROBLEM.”
With the added information of the rags, the sight moved to “DANGER.”
She stopped and thought. There was someone in the house. The person was strong and dangerous. Based on the look on her husband’s face, the person was still in the house. She looked at her husband’s eyes. They darted towards the pantry door, which was around the corner and on her right.
She backed up, but not in time. The man came at her with startling speed. People just weren’t supposed to move that fast indoors. Something flashed pink in the morning light and she jerked back her hand. She’d been cut. She ran.
As she passed the telephone table, she clawed at the edge with her hand. She pulled and supplemented her speed, sending the table back into the legs of the man chasing her. It was either the legs of the table, or the cloth-covered telephone cable that tripped him. Whatever it was, the man’s legs tangled and he crashed to the floor of the hall as she rounded the banister. She was halfway up the stairs before she stole a glance. The man was pushing to his feet in a tangle of splintered furniture.
She thought quickly and made her decision.
She could get her two boys out the front window, and onto the porch roof. Then she could yell for her oldest while she stayed to protect the baby. Her husband was on his own.
She threw open the door to the room the boys shared. It was empty. Both of their beds were unmade and their pillows on the floor. The window—the one she’d intended to shepherd them through—was already open. The curtains billowed in on the morning air. This wasn’t the first time they’d snuck out. They would be behind the barn, trying to catch rabbits as the animals returned to their warrens.
She heard bashing and breaking from downstairs.
Across the hall, the baby was still sleeping peacefully.
She threw open the window and began screaming.
# # # # #
James tightened his grip on the pen.
He resolved to stay closer to the original text. There was something a little more distant and sterile about his father’s prose. It was a skill that James was still trying to perfect. Somehow his father could describe terrible events but still give himself enough room to breathe and move around. James tended to get sucked in to the stories. If he wasn’t careful, James would veer from his father’s narrative and describe gory details that might be easily glossed over.
James didn’t have the advantage of newspaper training. That was surely where his father had picked up his objective reporting skills. Then again, at his age, his father had probably only written a tenth of the text that James had produced.
He flipped the page and kept his hand moving at its slow and steady pace.
# # # # #
“You can’t kill them,” the littlest boy said.
“We have to,” his brother said. “Either we do it, or he will.”
“He will what?”
Their oldest brother backed down the ramp from the back door. He coaxed the wheelbarrow out as he backed down to the ground. It was overfull, and he was careful to keep it level so it didn’t dump manure into the lawn. When he got the wheelbarrow to the ground, he lowered the handles until it sat on its own. He walked over to his brothers.
They were both crouched next to a deep, tin pail.
“Ma will kill you guys if she catches you out before dawn again,” the oldest said.
In the bottom of the pail, four baby rabbits were huddled together.
The smallest boy looked like he was about to cry. “Henry says we have to kill them. I don’t want to kill them. Why can’t we just keep them?”
“Aw, Ray, Don’t cry about it. You know what Pa will say,” John said. “He’ll say, ‘They ate my crops, now they’re going to feed my family.’”
“Then let’s just let them go,” Ray said.
“No sir,” Henry, the middle boy, said. “Pa will find out, and then we’ll get switched. I’m taking the pail to Ma.” He picked up the handle and stood up. Ray grabbed the other side of the handle and sat down. Henry tried to drag his brother. When he was unsuccessful, he jerked at his end of the handle.
Ray began to cry. He didn’t make a sound, but fat tears rolled to the curve of his cheeks and then fell.
“Hold on a moment,” John said. “What were you doing out here if you didn’t expect to catch rabbits? And what did you expect to do with those rabbits if not eat them?”
“We were trying to catch big rabbits. Like that,” he removed one of his hands from the pail to point.
Henry pulled at the same moment and gained sole possession of the pail. He nearly fell down for his effort.
John followed the pointing finger and saw a fat brown rabbit on its side in the grass. A little blood was crusted over the rabbit’s eye.
“Say, now that’s a different story you’re telling,” John said. “If you’ve got the big one, then you can let the little ones go. Just take the big one to eat and the others don’t have to die.”
“But that’s the mother rabbit,” Ray said. “The babies won’t live without their mother.”
“You never said…” John began. He stopped at the sound of the rooster crowing again. “What was that?”
Henry looked confused. “It’s the rooster. What are you talking about?”
“Not that,” John said. “That!”
All the boys heard it that time. It was their mother screaming from the house.
John led the way in the sprint through the barn and across the dooryard to the house. Ray and Henry carried the pail between them as they ran. Their fight about the bunnies had been forgotten.
# # # # #
While he listened to the woman scream, Snake-man found a glass jug of lamp oil in the pantry. He took that and a box of wooden matches to the stairs. In the kitchen, the old farmer was rocking his fat, naked body back and forth, trying to tip the table over. It would never work. The table was solid and sturdy. The old farmer was weak.
Snake-man upended the jug, dousing the stairs, banister, and walls liberally with the oil. A decent amount splashed back on his pants and shoes, but he hardly seemed to notice. When he’d poured most of the bottle out, he used the rest to make a trail down the hall. He threw the empty bottle at the old farmer. The glass said DINK as it bounced off the farmer’s skull. The old farmer swayed back and thunked his head back to the table after the blow. He was still.
Snake-man crouched and struck a match.
He fed it to the puddle of oil.
The effect was better than he’d hoped. The flame leapt down the trail of liquid, swerving back and forth to trace the path that Snake-man had drawn. When it reached the doused area, the air said, “Whoomph!”
Snake-ma
n smiled.
He heard an answering call through the screen door. It was the son. Behind him, two smaller boys ran.
“Ma!” the oldest yelled. He pulled to a stop and looked up at the second floor of the house. The woman was yelling something that Snake-man couldn’t quite make out.
Snake-man returned to the kitchen table, where the old farmer was regaining his wits for the third time that morning.
Instead of yelling unintelligible sounds into the rag, the old farmer seemed to be trying to say individual words. Snake-man plucked at a corner of the rag. He pulled it from the old farmer’s mouth.
“Please. I’ll give you whatever you want. Just please don’t hurt my family.”
Snake-man considered that and then leaned in very close to give his response. “How could I ask for anything more when you’ve already given me so much?” Snake-man used his open hand to slap the old-farmer’s genitals. It was a savage smack, and the old farmer nearly doubled-up, despite the restraints. While he was still trying to gasp in a breath, Snake-man stuffed the rag back into the old farmer’s mouth.
Snake-man used his knife.
# # # # #
John pulled to a stop when his mother yelled down to him.
“John, don’t go in there. There’s a madman in there. Get your brothers in the barn and get the rat gun,” she said.
John turned to follow orders. His mother disappeared back through the window. He cut off his brothers in the door yard and crouched down to their height.
“Boys, there’s trouble. Mom wants you both to climb up into the top hayloft and hide. Don’t you come out for anything,” John said.