Scott Nicholson Library Vol 1

by Scott Nicholson

  Just wait until I put on my boots.

  Her eyes crawled across the room like fleshflies looking for a soft opening on a corpse. They lit on a photograph of Beth on the mantel, a still-life Beth whose face was trapped in innocence, cheer, and happiness.

  “Who’s that?” Mother asked.

  “The woman I love,” I said, working another swallow of liquor toward my burning stomach, washing down the bitter aftertaste of that final word.

  Mother frowned, wrinkles on wrinkles.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Mother passed out while the afternoon sun was still heavy in the sky. I covered her with a spare blanket and stood over her, looking down at her stale-pastry face. She was already a corpse, lacking only the butterfly stitches in the eyelids.

  I thought about taking off her scuffed loafers, but I was afraid to touch her.

  You can touch her, Richard. She’s yours. All of her. My gift to you.

  “No. You can take my awareness, you can shuck my consciousness from me, you can steal my flesh, but you can’t make me hurt her.”

  Richard, Richard, Richard. You still don’t get it, do you? After all we’ve been through together, you still misunderstand me. My feelings would be hurt, if I had any besides yours.

  “What do you mean? This is all your doing. Just more of your cruelty, so you can eat my pain. Well, eat up, you invisible soulfucker. Because you can make me feel guilty, I admit. You know where to dig up every little bone in my brain cemetery.”

  No, Richard. Don’t you see? The beauty of all this, the thing that makes it so indescribably delicious, is that I don’t have to MAKE you do anything. All I’m doing is granting you freedom of choice.

  “You monster. I never invited you in.”

  Sometimes monsters are made, not born.

  “How many? How many do you need to kill before you’re tired of me?”

  As many as it takes.

  “Not her, please not her.”

  I thought you hated her.

  “Maybe so. I don’t know. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s my mother. I know you don’t understand, but humans just can’t help certain feelings and emotions.”

  Look at her, Richard. You want to, don’t you? You can do anything you want. I’m offering you everything. You can become one of us. You can join me in eternal life. Just surrender to me and become yourself.

  I looked down at Mother. The young winter light made her face almost peaceful. She snorted in her sleep and a clear strand of drool leaked from one corner of her mouth.

  This was the woman who had given me life. This was the one who really was to blame. She’d taught me everything I knew and didn’t know about love. I turned, feeling that familiar black curtain descending.

  Before I knew it, I was in the kitchen, sliding open the kitchen drawer. The bread knife found my hand. Its serrated edge grinned under the light.

  “No, no, no.”

  I dropped the knife to the floor and the tip gouged a hole in the soft linoleum. Jagged laughter howled through my veins.

  Almost had you that time, didn’t I, Richard?

  I knelt on the floor, holding my head in my hands.

  “Run inside, Richard. The boots are coming,” Mister Milktoast whispered from the dark.

  “What’s in there under the blanket, Dickie?” taunted Loverboy. “Smells warm. Smells ripe. And Beth’s not around to knead this little Pillsbury doughboy.”

  “Pick up the knife,” Little Hitler said. “How beautiful that would be. Poetic justice. First Father, then Mother. Patrimatricide.”

  With friends like that, Richard...

  The curtain lifted and I was lying on the cold lineoleum, sweating. I could hear Mother’s soft, arrhythmic snores. So she was still alive.

  Congratulations, Richard. You passed the first test.

  “Test?”

  You couldn’t kill her. Because you don’t even pretend to love her.

  “What?”

  You loved Virginia. Where is she now?

  What good did your love do Shelley? A one-night stand, except that for her, the night never ended. It keeps on stretching, out and out and forever.

  Monique. You loved her. Inside out.

  “Hey, what gives, Filthy Richie?” said Loverboy. “Is the Insider pulling your pud, or what?”

  “Get the fuck out of my head.”

  “Damn, Dickie. Don’t get your panties in a twist. Come to think of it, as little action as you’re getting me, that would probably be an improvement.”

  I rose to my knees and crawled across the floor like a toddler going after a soft, brown comforting thing, a fuzzy cuddle in a harsh room, a consciousness about to form its first memory. But this wasn’t the beginning. This was the wrap of the second act, where the plot complications conspired and forced the protagonist to finally face his nemesis, albeit from a position of weakness.

  One arm, Little Hitler’s arm, stretched for the knife.

  “Don’t fight it, Richard. You know you love her. And you know what happens to the ones you love.”

  “No. I don’t love her. You know that.”

  “That’s not how I remember it,” said Loverboy. “You loved her a hell of a lot. Maybe not as well as I could have, but I don’t expect much from a jellydick like you.”

  “She loves us, Richard,” Mister Milktoast said. “Appeased in a pod.”

  “Then why didn’t she stop the boots?”

  “Because we were all too weak—you, me, her.”

  “But I sure as fuck wasn’t,” Little Hitler said, fingers caressing the knife handle. “If it wasn’t for me, you’d both probably be whimpering in the closet. You owe me, Richard.

  You owe me big-time. And payback’s a bitch.”

  “Haven’t I paid you enough? Talk about usury. You’re worse than the Insider. I think you crave the guilt more than it does.”

  “Do you really think the Insider gives a flying upside-down batfuck about any of us? To it, one human is as good as another. Drop in, stir up a brainstorm, and head on down the line. No big deal, a little soul grazing, just getting through the day. But to me, this isn’t about survival. To me, this is personal.”

  The knife was slick beneath my sweaty palm. I raised the blade and pointed it at my chest. If only I could fall on it before...

  “Don’t, Richard,” screamed Mister Milktoast. “What would become of me?”

  “Food for maggots, with any luck.”

  “Food for faggots, more like it,” Loverboy said. “Strap Daddy in stilettos and mince him down the runway.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Mister Milktoast said, ignoring the taunt.

  “Bullshit.” It was my fault, and besides, my word was law, right?

  “He’s right, Richard,” Bookworm said, and his voice came flat, calm, and clear from the dead zone of my cranium. I pressed the steel between my ribs.

  “Not you, too, Bookworm? I thought, of all of them, you might be on my side. You’re practically my co-author.”

  “I’m on your side. More than you know.”

  “Then help me. Help me die.” Tears streamed down my cheeks but I felt no sorrow.

  “Richard, you’re not strong enough to love. But are you strong enough to hope?”

  “Hope springs eternal,” cut in Mister Milktoast, as if the suicidal tide might dry up now that Bookworm kicked sand in everyone’s face. “Present tense despite the current tension.”

  “Do you love yourself enough, Richard?” continued Bookworm.

  “He loves himself plenty,” said Loverboy. “That right hand of his is practically worn out. I say it’s about time to let him get the fuck out of Dodge. Beth is tight as a breadstick and twice as salty, but this monogamy crap is getting old. Me, I got needs.”

  “I say winterize him,” Little Hitler said. “Let Richard bury himself back in the dark. Nobody would shed a tear. And I wouldn’t mind having a go at this meat full-time.”

  I would welcome that. If I couldn’t s
tab myself, maybe I could just slip on down into the dark waters, drown inside my own sorry sea. No, the ocean-beach metaphor was paragraphs ago. It was time for domestic reference. Okay, so I’d book myself a back room in the Bone House and hang out a “No vacancy” sign.

  Bookworm came in again, calm and strong. “Do you love yourself enough, Richard?”

  “Love? What’s love got to do with anything? And if I really did love anybody, then I would want to spare them our miserable company.”

  The waters tempted, lapping. The curtains fluttered. Or was it the Insider laughing?

  “Do you love yourself enough to live?” Bookworm challenged.

  “I hate myself enough to die, I know that.”

  “Then you’d be dead already. Why aren’t you?”

  “The arch enemy hasn’t finished painting his rainbow,” Mister Milktoast said. “Sorry. Inside joke.”

  The knife point was to my chest now, pressing into the flannel, bruising the sternum. Through the window, the sun hung fat and low over the far mountains. I should have been at work. I was scheduled for the night shift. But I was in search of a longer night shift, eternal overtime, no hope for dawn.

  “Beautiful,” Little Hitler said. “Richard’s so pathetic he can’t even succeed at the ultimate failure. Do you guys need more evidence as to why we need to fucking drown him already?”

  “Be my guest, Little Hitler. Nothing would please me more than to disappear inside. And you, Mister Milktoast. You’ve tried to keep me out of danger. But you want to live, with or without me.”

  “You wound me, old friend. After all I’ve done for you...”

  “All you did was protect me from the truth. Just like Mother.”

  The blade pressed, the hand gripped, the arm ached to thrust. Blood thundered, heart throbbed, shutters shuddered.

  “Richard,” came Bookworm’s soothing voice, like a New Age audiobook narrator who’d sampled the chamomile. “It still won’t be the end.”

  “The end? What do I care about the end? All I want is to be out. Flying solo to hell or whatever those joking bastard gods have in mind for me. I just want to lose any awareness that I was ever me.”

  “Yes, Richard. It would end for you, but what about the Insider?”

  “The Insider? I’d be depriving it of a moment’s distraction, that’s all. It would just jump like—”

  “—like a nimble metaphor over a proverbial candlestick burning at both ends. And move on.”

  “Whatever. It’s not my fault. I didn’t bring the thing into the world. And I didn’t invite it into my heart. It’s not like Mother made me do with Jesus.”

  “That was me,” Mister Milktoast said. “I was always trying to protect you.”

  “Jesus Jiminy Christ, what a joke,” Little Hitler said with a howl of laughter that rattled the Bone House windows. “Saving him from the savior. So which one of you angels are going to heaven? Now I’ve heard everything. Hell, now I’ve been everything.”

  I turned to the only one who still seemed unselfish. “Bookworm, do you really think I’d mind snuffing these mental clowns out of existence? I’d be doing the world a favor. It’s practically my duty.”

  “Yes. You and I would end. All of us. But the Insider would continue. This chapter would end, the manuscript would expire in media res, but there would be a sequel.”

  “So you believe. But I’m only human. What do you want me to do about it?”

  My body was tensed, awaiting the deathblow that wouldn’t come. A sharp lightning bolt flashed through my skull and fireshadows danced in my eyes. Black scraps stitched themselves together into a blanket over my brain. The Insider’s voice stabbed with its icy splinters, a gang rape of thoughts.

  No need for me to jump very far, is there, Richard?

  “What are you talking about?”

  Plenty of suitable hosts all around. Plenty who’ve been tortured and abused and are brimming with pain. Plenty who have sinned. Plenty of humans right within reach who’ve been tainted by their humanity and are just waiting for a monster to come in. Practically BEGGING for it.

  “What’s that got to do with me? As long as I’m out of the picture, I don’t care if you reanimate Elvis’s corpse or do the hokey pokey with Abraham Lincoln’s ghost.”

  Choices, choices, choices. Mother or Beth. Beth or Mother. So many to be, so little time.

  “No. You miserable mindfucker.”

  Which is the greater of two evils?

  “Damn you to hell.”

  Thanks for the kind sentiment. But I’ve found the hottest hell right here.

  I struggled with myself, my own arm. The knife or not.

  I’ll let you die happy, if that’s what you want. You can go with a smile on your face, knowing that your beautiful little self-sacrifice is going to add to the guilt and pain of those you left behind. Hmmm. My mouth is watering already. Or is that YOUR mouth?

  I swayed, confused, a minuet with sharp metal edges.

  “Listen to your heart, Richard,” Bookworm said.

  “My heart says stick the knife in.”

  “Don’t give up. We can beat it. Together.”

  The Insider’s laughter ripped through my guts like shrapnel, pulsed through my veins like broken glass, rattled in my headbone like a blunt hatchet blade.

  That’s when I realized I didn’t want to die. At least not alone.

  Not when I could take somebody with me. Or something.

  “Yo, Squidbait,” said Loverboy. He was as jaunty as a sailor on shore leave with cockswain to spare and furlough to burn. “What would Mother say if she saw Richard down on his knees with a knife in his hand?”

  “Hey, Loverboy, you tart-popping sonofabitch. Why don’t you ask her?”

  I turned. Mother was leaning against the kitchen entrance, wiping at the crust in her watery eyes. I put the knife behind my back.

  She spoke, and her throat was so dry her voice cracked. “Richard...”

  Had she seen the knife? I pretended to be looking for a spill. That was the only reason I could think of why I would be on my knees in the kitchen. I sure couldn’t pretend to be praying.

  “Richard…”

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “In this light, you look just like your father.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I led Mother upstairs to the spare room. She sat on the bed, her glass in her hand. If she ever died, the undertaker would have to break her fingers to get them out of that hawkish grip.

  “You can sleep here,” I said. “I’ve got to go to work. Make...”

  She brightened, snapped her eyes wide like a frog going after a waterbug. “...make yourself at home.”

  Home is where the heart is. So Mister Milktoast likes to say. But sometimes, home is where the head is, especially if you are behind on rent and you claim squatter’s rights.

  Mother grabbed my shirt as I tried to leave. “Just like old times, Richard. The good old days.”

  Loverboy wanted, yes, he shivered and reached out to touch her cheek, but, yes, Mister Milktoast was right, good things were worth waiting for. Yes, Little Hitler cheered them both on and Bookworm kept the scorecard.

  “It’ll be late when I get back. I’ll try not to wake you.”

  I’ll try very, very hard.

  I was sweating again by the time I got out the front door. The November air slapped like a frozen glove, but still the juice trickled from my pores. I got in my Subaru and started the engine and sat watching my breath make crystals on the windshield.

  Yes, Richard. Things are moving right along. Everything unfolding according to the synopsis.

  “You fucking inhuman monster.”

  Sticks and stones, Richard. Except, of course, I don’t have any bones to break. That’s why I have to borrow yours.

  I gave the steering wheel an open-palmed punch.

  Hahaha. This is delightful, I must say. I’ve seen the ashes rising from the crematoriums at Dachau and Auschwitz, the sky gray and thick w
ith flies. I’ve ridden over the bloody snow at Wounded Knee while mothers tried to cover their papooses. I’ve breathed the mustard gas and gangrene of Flanders. I’ve lain awake at night in the jungles of Cambodia and the deserts of Darfur, counting myself to sleep with screaming children as sheep. But nothing, NOTHING, has been as sweet as this latest joyride. I want to thank you, from the bottom of your heart.

  “I’ll get you, you bastard.”

  Richard, you’ve made me really appreciate what it means to be human. You’ve proven a perfect specimen of your kind. And just because your species has exterminated mine is not the reason this is so enjoyable. What makes this the crown jewel among a thousand possessions is that no one has ever DESERVED me as much as you have.

  “You’ll never get Mother.”

  The night is young.

  At work, I was busy with the Christmas orders that were coming in. Brittany was out of town for the weekend and Miss Billingsly had worked the day shift, so Bookworm had his hands full running the register and stocking the shelves. I was glad to be occupied. It kept their minds from Mother.

  Arlie was sitting in the poet’s corner, watching the highway and sipping at whatever he had in his cup. He rubbed his face.

  “What you doing for Thanksgiving?” he asked while I was rearranging the postcard display on the counter.

  “My mother’s in town.”

  “Hey. That’s nice.”

  “Yeah”

  “Saw one of them last night.” He wiped at his buzzard’s beak of a nose.

  “One of what?”

  “Them. Flying saucers. Came out the top of Widow’s Peak and swooped down over my fields as dead quiet as a bat.”

  “Same kind?”

  “Yep. Kind of greenish and flat like one of those Frisbees the hippie boys throw. Had a row of red lights around the outside edge.”

  I nodded and rang the register. A lady with a pixie haircut bought Stephen King’s new novel. It was the sixth one I’d sold that night. That was one squirrel-eyed bastard who knew how to plot. If only Bookworm were as gifted.

  After she left, Arlie said, “Swooped down Tater Knob Road and then back up where there’s nothing but old logging trails, where nobody ever goes anymore. Them things are smart, I tell you. That’s why they call them ‘alien intelligence.’”