by Scott Hale
“Where are you getting this crap, Mom?” Gemma mumbled, about to click on a website authored by someone named Connor Prendergast.
She went stiff as she heard her dad’s heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. It was a learned response kids like her could have done without.
“Guess he’s ready to fight now.”
Gemma rolled over, dropped the phone. She went to her window, which overlooked the north side of the coast. Like a homesick Neanderthal, she missed her cave. It was out there, in that salty dark, host to all sorts of slimy, skittering things. That’s where she was most creative and most free.
Something was wrong with the moon. Gemma opened the window and leaned forward on the sill. There were weird bands in the sky. Thick strands of ink with odd, oily colors, like a gasoline spill. Pollution? She squinted as hard as she could, and then reeled. The inky strands weren’t in the sky, but attached to the moon itself, pouring out of its craggy face from smeary space to the distant foothills. It looked like a spider. It was moving forward. And there was nothing she could do but stare at it in terrified awe.
TRENT GEMMA CAMILLA
The door to Camilla’s room creaked open, and the smell of Trent came through. She wasn’t asleep, not yet, but with the lights out and the blanket up to her nose, she was well on her way. What time was it, anyway? Barely opening her eye, she saw the clock read 12:15 AM.
Jesus I’m getting old, she thought. Quarter past midnight, and I’m already beat.
At the foot of the bed, the mattress sank to a new weight, Trent’s weight. He pressed his hands to the folds of the blanket, near where her feet protruded, bare to catch the cold air. She only had on a bra and panties.
What the hell is he doing?
Still feigning sleep, she listened to his heavy breathing and wondered what drunken soliloquy he was going to grace her with tonight. His fingers, coarse from factory work, lightly touched her ankle. A warm sensation ran up her leg. She fought every impulse to recoil. It was a sensation she had lost and was surprised to have found again.
Trent’s hand traveled up her calf, spreading the blanket as he went. Camilla’s leg hairs bristled against his nails. Though her eyes were tightly shut, she could imagine the scene with clarity. Every movement he made added another stroke to the heated imagery wavering like a mirage in her mind. He hadn’t attempted to touch her in this way in almost a year. The shock of it was almost paralyzing. Half of her just wanted to see how far he would take it. And the other half, the desperate half, the one which was mostly spit and snarls, wanted him to take it as far as he could, until she herself couldn’t take it anymore. Until she had gotten her selfish fill, and the revulsion of his touch finally kicked in.
Now, his hand was gripping her thigh, right above her knee. Hard calluses, the gems of his labor, scraped her skin while he kneaded her muscles. Her body was betraying her hatred. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and a spot of heat bloomed over her breasts. She clenched her legs to cut off the wetness that had formed between them. A soft moan escaped her saliva-sealed lips, and she went red in the face. It wasn’t that she didn’t want him to know she was enjoying this. That much was obvious. It was that she didn’t want to admit to herself that she was enjoying this. Things were better with Trent when she put herself somewhere else, or pretended to be something she wasn’t. And yet here she was, damn near in the palm of his groping hand.
Camilla cracked open her eyes. Because of the dark, Trent was nothing more than a featureless shape sitting beside her. That made the experience better. Of course, she knew it was him. She was his wife. If she was an expert on anything in life, it was the texture of her husband, inside and out. As his fingers crept towards her inner thigh, she flirted with fantasies of who this featureless shape may be. Crushes or celebrities. The one-night stand, or the two-night pity party. But the fantasies didn’t last long. The shape always returned to Trent, not as he was now, drunken and pathetic, but as he had been years ago. When they were young. When they were happy. When marriage was a mystery, and beautiful moments were all they had. And all they needed.
Trent’s fingers brushed like breaths against the folds of Camilla’s sex. She bit her tongue as he pushed aside her underwear. He teased her lips open. Treating her like it was his first time, she felt like it was her first time, too. Despite how good it felt, Camilla knew it wasn’t going to solve anything. It hadn’t in the past, and sure as hell wasn’t going to now. But she wanted this. And like the Dread Clock downstairs, she was going to have it.
One hand pressed down on her hip, Trent leaned forward and slid his finger inside her. Camilla relented, released her muscles, only to have them tense up again. She sank into the bed, burying half her face into the pillow. Trent went in deeper, and when he went in deeper, he moved over her, the phantom of his weight pressing down on her. Her arm wrapped around him. She gripped his drenched shirt and tried to pull him onto her. But he wouldn’t budge. He hadn’t come here to satisfy any need but her own.
Down to the knuckles, with both fingers inside her, he curled his fingers, rubbing their tips against those dampening walls, as though he were beckoning her forward. She made a fist against his back, bunching up his shirt as she ground against the bed. She pressed her hips down, giving him permission to do it harder. And he did. He stroked her insides with more force. He worked a third finger, stretching her further. It hurt, but not enough to make her care. Pain for pleasure. In her experience, the trade was fair.
She wasn’t far from orgasm went something went wrong. Trent’s hand, a sweaty clamp on her hip, bore down into her bones. She tried to adjust herself, but he wouldn’t get the hint.
It’s fine, she thought. The sharp pain in her side wasn’t enough to distract her from what was coming.
But then Trent worked a fourth finger, his pinky, inside her. Her muscles, unused and unwilling, burned as though they were going to tear. She unclenched his shirt and grabbed his wrist, to try and give him guidance at this moment of climax. He ignored her. Curling his fingers into claws, he gripped her from within and dug his nails into her vagina. Camilla squeezed his wrist, conflicted; the pain and pleasure becoming entwined, one now dependent upon the other to survive.
“Not so hard,” she said breathily, betraying silence. She was still close enough to come, despite the setbacks. “Please, don’t stop, but don’t be so—”
The muscles in Trent’s forearms tightened. Hand clawed inside her, nails nearly cutting into her vaginal walls, he moved his arm back and forth, as fast as he could, as though he were trying to dig his way out of her.
Camilla crushed his wrist. She reared up, screaming, “Stop, stop!” but now he had his whole hand inside her, trying to rip her open.
Camilla pulled back her leg and kicked him in his flaccid crotch. Winded, he tore his hand out of her, and a tongue of mucus, piss, and blood gushed onto the bed. She kicked again, aiming higher. Her foot smashed against his teeth and sent him reeling off the bed.
“Get the fuck out!” She grabbed the blanket, wrapped it around her. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Get out! Get the fuck out!”
By the time she turned on the lamp, Trent, or the featureless shape she thought had been him, was already gone.
TRENT GEMMA CAMILLA
I have to be inside her to show her I love her. I have to be inside her to show her I love her.
TRENT GEMMA CAMILLA
The door to Gemma’s room creaked open, and the smell of Dad came through. She wasn’t asleep, not yet, but only because the spidery moon had her transfixed at the window. When she heard his sigh behind her, the spell was broken, and the inky strands that hung from the steadfast satellite were gone.
“Oh, wow,” she said. Her eyes went fuzzy. She rubbed her face until it was numb. “Oh, wow, what the… Dad, did you see that?”
She pressed her nose to the glass. As far as she could tell the moon was back where it was belonged, high in the clouded sky. “Oh my god, it was so weird. Do I look sick? I feel—”
She caught his reflection in the window. He was still as stone, staring wildly at her.
Gemma turned and her eyes went to her dad’s balled fist, which was wet in some places, and crusted over with a white film in others. His clothes, the T-shirt and jeans he’d had on all day, didn’t fit to him. They drooped over him, like they had come straight out of the wash. And he smelled. Gemma sniffed the air and caught the scent of something potent she couldn’t place, and also, urine.
About all she could manage to say was, “What’s wrong?”
And all her dad could manage to do was uncurl his fist and flex his fingers, which were still webbed with her mother’s release.
“Dad? You’re freaking me out.” Gemma let out an awkward laugh, smiled an awkward smile. “What did you do?”
The Dread Clock’s ticking started coming through the floor vent beside Gemma’s foot. Each noise it made was short, simultaneously thudding and piercing. It made her gums hurt, like a dentist had gone at them with one of their tools.
Cringing, Gemma said, “Dad? Dad. Dad!” She went forward, then stopped; looked at Scram for support. “Dad, you’re creeping me out!”
“I love you,” he said, at last.
“Yeah. I love you, too?”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
Gemma’s voice shook as she said, “No, you know I don’t. Dad? Dad, are you drunk?”
Her dad’s vacant stare gave her goosebumps. His mouth kept moving, like he was silently repeating himself over and over. And now that she was looking at his mouth, she saw how red it was. His lip was busted. If it was bleeding, she couldn’t be sure, because he kept licking and sucking on it, as though he were trying not to make a mess in her room.
“You look bad.” Gemma took a few steps closer to him. She didn’t want to reject him. He seemed to be expecting that. “Go back downstairs. Please? I could call Uncle Jasper.”
Dad reached out his slick, encrusted hand and took Gemma by the chin. He ran his bitter-tasting thumb over her lip and said, “I love you. I don’t show you enough.” Blood leaked down his mouth, but he slurped it back up.
As his other hand hovered beside her waist, Gemma muttered, “You do. I know. I… I love you, too.”
Don’t yell for Mom. Don’t. She pushed every sickening thought out of her head that had to do with what her Dad was possibly planning. He’s just drunk. This isn’t him.
He closed his hand on her waist, his fingers uncomfortably close to her butt. Letting go of her chin, tears and blood running down his face, he said, “Your mother was beautiful. All the men loved her. Will you be smarter than her? Be smart enough not to meet a man like me?” His hand traveled inward, towards the outskirts of her pelvis.
Gemma, shaking, her lips quivering, whispered, “What are you…?”
Her stomach was in knots, her head pounding with an ache. She felt strange in a way she hadn’t felt before, and didn’t like how she was feeling it now with her dad, his hands on her.
“Your mom is downstairs,” her dad said.
He fingered her waistband. His other hand gripped her side and barely touched her breast.
“By the clock. Go.” He let go of her, recoiled backward.
His eyes focused, and light returned to them.
“Go to her.” Looking as though he were going to vomit, he stormed out of her room and locked himself in the bathroom just outside it.
Gemma touched the places where he had touched her and broke down in tears.
TRENT GEMMA CAMILLA
Camilla sat in front of the Dread Clock, her legs parted and still quivering from finishing what Trent had started upstairs. She felt pathetic, like some disgusting wretch enslaved by her emotions. But she did feel better than she had before, which said a lot, given that, currently, her crotch felt as though it had been sanded down and doused in rubber cement.
She wasn’t mad at Trent anymore. The Dread Clock had a comforting quality to it that took the sting out of most things. Watching the pendulum sway back and forth put her in a trance most monks could only ever dream of obtaining. Perhaps her favorite part of the clock was the moon dial, where three celestial bodies were depicted upon the scorched plate above the clock face. They tended to move, but only when they were on the edges of her field of vision. In a way, they reminded her of Trent, Gemma, and herself. Three unrecognizable bodies caught in each other’s hellish orbits, taking a little from the other every time they passed.
Was that muscle behind the gears? Camilla strained her eyes and went down on all fours, crawling to the clock’s glass case. Yes, it was. Behind the pendulum, like fleshy spider webs. How had she missed this before? Beautiful. It hadn’t been alive, but now it was—a new member of their dysfunctional home.
Footsteps on floorboards. Thump, slump, thump. Camilla fell back on her haunches and craned her neck to the staircase. Gemma was standing in the middle, moonlit and in some sort of mourning. Teenagers. Always the same, despite their claims of uniqueness.
“Can’t sleep?” Camilla said. She waved her daughter over. “Come here. I want you to see something.”
Gemma took a good minute to make her way to Camilla, but that was fine. They still had ten minutes or so to indulge in the dark secrets of the Dread Clock’s music.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Why are you sitting in your underwear down here?”
Camilla rubbed her bare legs. “You sound like you’ve been crying.”
Gemma shook her head.
“A man got you down?” She laughed and patted the ground. “Take a load off.”
Gemma sat down, but with a healthy amount of distance between her and Camilla. She had been crying. Her face was puffy, and her voice had a quiver to it only years of spousal arguments could remedy.
“There’s something wrong with Dad,” Gemma said, bringing her knees to her chest. She buried her face in them and added, “I think he hurt himself.”
“Did you know can’t find the materials the clock is made out of on Earth anymore?”
Gemma shook her head. She shot Camilla a damning look.
Camilla ignored it and carried on. “They had to use just the right materials to hold every evil thing that’s been done or could be done.”
“Looks like wood to me,” Gemma mumbled. “And glass. And metal.”
Camilla rolled her eyes. “Some say each nun…”
She stopped, listened. The mouth deep in the clock was talking too quietly to hear.
And then: “Yeah, that’s right. After the Dread Clock was completed, each nun, after their deaths, were put inside it.”
At this, Gemma removed her face from her knees. “There’s dead bodies inside there?!”
“It’s said their spirits keep it going, to keep ridding the world of sin.”
Gemma shook her head. “They’re doing a shitty job of it.”
Camilla almost slapped her, but the mouth deep in the Dread Clock told her to wait on that.
“Mom.”
“Yes, dear?”
“You and Dad. Something isn’t…” Unable to find her words, Gemma started to her feet, but Camilla stopped her. “I feel like something terrible is going to—”
More footsteps on the staircase. This time, it was Trent. Gemma gasped, and then Camilla saw why she had. He was completely naked, and protruding from his urethra was a bloody toothbrush. He wheeled around them, sat down beside Camilla. She threw one arm around him, and the other around Gemma.
“This is nice,” she said, squeezing them closer to her, eyes wide and nothing but pupil. “All it took was for one little clock to make us a family again.”
TRENT GEMMA CAMILLA
The next morning, Trent woke up on the beach, in agonizing pain, cell phone in hand, with absolutely no memory as to how he ended up there.
TRENT GEMMA CAMILLA
The next morning, Gemma woke up in the family room, the TV turned all the way up, with drool down her chin, and her hand in a box of cereal. She couldn’t reme
mber why she was where she was, but she did remember everything else.
TRENT GEMMA CAMILLA
The next morning, Camilla woke up in the bath tub, a Bible in it with her, and the taste of paper and ink in her mouth. She had eaten halfway through the Old Testament. Though she couldn’t remember the night before, she had a sneaking suspicion some Old Testament fire and brimstone was exactly what she needed at this very moment in time.
TRENT GEMMA CAMILLA
No one came looking for him, which was good, because he had only managed to make it to the garage before the pain in his penis became too much to bear. After making a call to Jasper to take him to the doctor, he sat in his car, the leather adhering to his sticky skin, looking at what he had done to himself.
“What the fuck?”
Something had been shoved into his urethra. Just looking at the widened site made him fevered. He had to piss, but even the thought of doing so made him hurt.
“Camilla?”
He looked out the car, wondering if his wife had done this to him. The thing that almost puzzled him more than anything else was the fact that, when he woke, there was dried toothpaste on his balls.
TRENT GEMMA CAMILLA
It was Sunday, and Gemma’s church was the cave. She didn’t leave a note or say goodbye. She just took her cell phone and ran out of the house, going the long way as she went so her parents wouldn’t see her and try to follow after. But, honestly, what did it matter? Whether they saw her or she saw them, they were still with her in her mind. And the memories of last night? They had already started to fester, infecting everything she had once held true.
Gemma navigated the still-cool dunes until they tapered away to the cliff that led to the cave. Two paths to take, she took the one that ran narrowly along the cliff, rather than the back entrance, for no reason other than the more dangerous route seemed to make the most sense. It was a makeshift walkway reinforced with wooden boards, and it was only a few feet in width. To her right, the rocks of the cliff, and her left, openness, and the ocean, after a twenty-foot drop, with a wall of boulders eager to break her.