Dominion

by Bentley Little

  Mother Janine had screamed, and Mother Margeaux had rushed into the house for the rifle, ordering Mother Felice to call the police. Mother Margeaux had led the charge across the meadow, firing into the air, and the wolves had fled, scattering and disappearing into the woods.

  There had been nothing left of her father’s face. His chest had been chewed open, his entrails devoured, and large chunks of his arms had been bitten off. Only his legs, for some reason, had sustained minor injuries.

  The six of them had carried his body back to the house themselves, his cooling blood dripping down their arms an dover their clothes, and waited for the ambulance to arrive.

  , The tale had been told to her and retold hundreds of times, and looking back now, Penelope wondered why her mothers had felt compelled to dwell on the end of her father’s life, why they had insisted on telling a small child such a horrifying story. For it had been horrifying. And frightening. And her mothers had always gone into gruesome detail in their descriptions of the blood and the body. She had had a series of ultra-vivid recurring nightmares in which her mothers had killed her father. What, she wondered now, had she been meant to learn from all that?

  She didn’t know.

  But she knew that her life would probably be a lot less confusing if her father was still alive.

  Mother Felice nudged her elbow, stood up. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go inside. It’s getting late.”

  “But it’s a Friday,” Penelope said. “It’s not a school night.”

  “You still have a lot of chores to do tomorrow. Besides, your other mothers will be wondering where we snuck off to.”

  “Let them wonder, then.”

  Her mother laughed. “You want me to tell that to Mother Margeaux?”

  “No,” Penelope admitted.

  “Come on, then.”

  Reluctantly, Penelope stood. She followed her mother into the house.

  He dreamed of high hills, white outcroppings of rock punctuating the dull green of late summer meadow grass. There were no houses or buildings hi sight, no roads, only a thin, slightly worn dirt path which looked as though it had been formed by the continued passage of animal hooves. To the right, the path wound up the nearest hill toward the summit. To the left, it meandered toward a stand of trees in the flat bottom of a gently sloping valley.

  He walked barefoot across the ground toward the path, rocky gravel beneath the grass digging deep into his heel and sole but not hurting.

  The air was hot but not humid, dry and desertlike, the sky above a light pastel, bleached by the sun.

  He felt good. His senses were heightened; he could see clearly for miles, he could hear the rickety click of insects moving in the grass, he could smell the heavy, warm, comforting odor of dirt and on top of that the lighter scent of growing weeds and grasses.

  He realized that he was very tall.

  He reached the path and turned toward the valley and the trees. The warm dirt felt smooth on his feet, and he began to walk faster, suddenly anxious to arrive at his destination. On his tongue he tasted the faint remembrance of grape, and for some reason that spurred his interest in hurrying.

  Ahead he saw movement on the path, smelled the fetid odor of an unwashed animal. He reached the spot and stopped. On the path before him was a goat, a she-goat, breasts heavy with milk. He found that he was thirsty, and he lifted the animal until its multiple teats were above his face.

  He took three in his mouth and began suckling. The warm, sweet milk slid smoothly down his thirsty throat.

  When he was finished, he put the goat down, and he noticed for the first time that next to it, just off the edge of the path, was the body of its kid. Or what remained of its kid. The small goat had been killed, gutted, mutilated, and sharp wooden sticks protruded from the bloody wreckage of its torso. Its legs and head had been ripped, off and tossed aside. Small segments of skin, tufts of bloody hair, hung from the low, sturdy stalks of grass.

  He knew that this meant he was getting close to home, and it made him feel good.

  He heard screams from the trees, screams of joy and pain, and, smiling, he began to run toward them.

  Dion spent Saturday with his mom, the two of them unpacking the last of their belongings, making adjustments to what was supposed to have been the final rearrangement of the living room. The work was monotonous, but Dion enjoyed doing it. Particularly since his mom seemed to be having a good time. Instead of moaning and complaining, making a big show of how much she hated doing domestic labor the way she usually did, she put on some records—Beatles and Beach Boys, music they could both agree on—and sang along as she dusted and cleaned the items she unpacked. She had been home from work on time both Thursday and Friday, acting like Holly Housewife, cooking dinner, cleaning dishes, watching television, making a visible effort to gain his trust, and she was low-key and conscientious in both her work and her conversation today, clearly trying to show him that things really had changed. He was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. It was obvious from the effort she was making that she’d meant what she’d said, that she really did want things to be different.

  Everything was going to be okay.

  On Sunday, the two of them spent the day exploring the Napa Valley. Life had been moving forward at such a hectic pace since they’d arrived, with school and work and unpacking, that they hadn’t really had much of a chance to see the area beyond their own small section of the city. Both of them figured it was about time they got to know their new home.

  They hit all the tourist spots, following a map of the valley given to his mom by the Auto Club. They drove past Lake Berryessa and Mount St.

  Helena, went to the Bale Grist Mill, and paid to see Old Faithful and the Petrified Forest, lesser publicized cousins of the identically named natural wonders. The land was not spectcular, but it was beautiful in a quiet, subtle sort of way, the country roads winding between cultivated vineyards, skirting rolling hills and low, wooded mountains.

  Although they drove as far as Sonoma to see Jack London’s house, they did not stop at any of the wineries. It would have been too awkward right now, too tense. Nothing would have or could have happened, but the mere fact that they were at a winery would have served as a reminder of things past, would have dredged up recent memories neither of them wanted to face. The subject of visiting a winery did not even come up between them.

  While his mom drove, however, Dion looked on the map for Daneam Vineyards, hoping to see where Penelope’s family business was located.

  Unfortunately, the winery was not listed. They passed several unnamed vineyards with both large and small complexes attached, any of which could have been the one owned by Penelope’s family, but though he carefully scrutinized each gate and signpost, Dion did not see Penelope’s last name written anywhere.

  They returned home around five, travel-tired and sightseeing-worn, and while his mom took a hot bath, Dion drove to Taco Bell and bought a junk food feast for both of them. They pigged out while watching 60 Minutes and afterward watched a TV movie together. For the first time in a long while, his mom seemed to him like a mother, not like a sister, not like a peer, not like an adversary, and Dion fell asleep happy. He did not dream.

  In the year and a half that he had worked as night watchman at Pauling Brothers Winery, Rob Fowler had never had occasion to investigate even a minor disturbance. There had been a few false alarms at first, brought about by his own jitters and inexperience rather than anything substantive, but those had disappeared after he’d learned the layout of the operation. Of course, Pauling was not Beringer’s or Mondavi or Sterling or one of those other high-profile wineries. Those, he understood, often had problems with vandals. But Pauling was a small concern, out of the way, off the main drag, and tours were given by invitation only. This meant that ordinarily he had a pretty cushy job.

  He read his mystery novels, watched his portable TV, did his crossword puzzles.

  Which was why he now felt so woefully unprepared.


  Ron walked slowly through the silent, empty building toward the entrance of the fermenting cave, peering anxiously in all directions, listening for any sound out of the ordinary. The huge room was empty, the only noise his own loudly clacking heels and the amplified drumming of the blood in his head. He was scared, much more scared than he’d thought he’d be when he’d imagined this scenario in his head. This was not something he was really trained for, not something he felt comfortable with. He had taken this job because it was supposed to be a cakewalk, not because he had any aptitude for it. As a retired maintenance worker, he drew a pension that was a step above bird crap, and he’d just wanted an easy way to pull in some extra cash. He’d been assured every step of the way that there was nothing to this job, that the gun he’d been issued was little more than a prop, part of the uniform, that he would never have to actually confront anyone.

  Why the hell hadn’t he got a job at Mcdonald’s with the other senior citizens?

  He walked slowly forward. He knew he didn’t have to do this. Despite what it said on his job description, despite the gun and the uniform and the ersatz police trappings, he could have simply alerted the cops and waited in place until they arrived. But he still wasn’t absolutely sure that this was anything. He had been at his station, in the small office next to Purchasing, reading an old Ross Mcdonald book, when the black-and-white picture on the screen monitoring the cave suddenly disappeared in a burst of snow. He caught the shift with his peripheral vision and immediately glanced up at the row of monitors above the desk, scanning quickly from one to the other. He had not counted on seeing anything, had assumed there had merely been some type of technical malfunction, but on the screen showing an overview of Distilling Room One he saw the door to the cave, which was supposed to be closed and locked at all times, swing slowly and deliberately shut.

  His heart had leaped in his chest.

  He’d immediately jumped up, grabbing his key ring and unholstering his weapon, and had hurried across the dimly lit parking lot to the distillery.

  Scared as he was, though, he was glad that he had not alerted the police. Calling in a false alarm, making a fool of himself in front of them, probably would have lost him his job quicker than anything else.

  Ron continued forward, toward the closed door leading to the cave. His hand on the butt of the pistol was sweaty, slippery, and he quickly switched hands, wiping his palm on the rough material of his pants before switching back.

  Something clicked against the other side of the door.

  He stopped in mid-step. The room suddenly seemed much darker, the tanks to each side much larger, more threatening. Even with the lights on, pools of shadow still existed, ill-defined patches of night which had seeped past the technology of electricity and phosphorescence into the building. There were a million hiding places here, he realized. An army of vandals, corporate spies, or terrorists could be staying in place, waiting for him to pass by so they could jump him.

  The door clicked again, but this time the sound was wet, faintly organic.

  Monsters.

  It’s vandals, he thought, clinging to the idea, trying to take comfort in it. It’s corporate thugs, burglars, arsonists, murderers, terrorists, escaped lunatics. His mind ran down the list of possible assailants, possible human assailants, in a desperate attempt to keep that other idea at bay.

  Monsters.

  That was what he really feared, wasn’t it? After all these years?

  Monsters. The decades had passed, he had grown up and grown old, but inside he was still that little boy who was afraid of the garage, who heard noises in the bushes outside his window at night, who saw shadows in the hallway grow and move after his parents turned off the light. The rationality that had come with responsibility and adulthood was merely a mask, a thin covering over the real self he had never really outgrown or left behind.

  The door to the fermenting cave was before him, a few steps away. He could clearly see the point at which the concrete foundation of the building met the side of the limestone hill. He wanted to run, to flee back to his office, to the homey comforts of his book and his TV, to pretend he had seen nothing and feign ignorance in the morning when the breakin was discovered, but he forced himself to put out his hand and knock loudly on the closed steel door.

  “Who’s in there?” he demanded.

  There was no answer.

  He tried the handle and, as he’d expected, the door was open. He pushed open the door with his left hand and gripped his gun firmly with his right.

  He staggered back, gagging.

  The floor of the cave was covered with blood, a thick red, viscous goo which looked like congealed Jello and smelled like rancid feces. Blood had splashed onto the sides of the wooden casks, and the odor of the blood mingled with the strong aroma of the fermenting vintage was almost overpowering. He pinched his nostrils together with his fingers so he could breathe, and held the door open with his foot. Flung randomly about the cave, on the floor, on top of the casks, against the limestone walls, were the rent and mutilated carcasses of dozens of small animals:

  squirrels, cats, rats, opossums. In the refracted light let in by the door, he could see peeled fur skin backed by white-veined flesh, discolored and deflated organs clustered about lifelines of arteries and intestines.

  There was a quiet pop, the sound of falling liquid, an alcohol blast of scent. Heart racing, he reached around the side wall, feeling the stone with his fingers, searching in vain for a light switch. He peered into the gloom at the far end of the narrow cave, and cursed himself for not bringing a flashlight. “Who’s there?” he called.

  There was no answer, but the liquid noise stopped. Now there was another sound.

  Chewing.

  “Come out now!” he ordered, but his voice was not as strong as it had been.

  Monsters.

  “Now!”

  No answer. Only chewing. A low laugh.

  He squinted into the gloom, and, to his horror, his eyes adjusted.

  Dwarfish figures were crouched in the shadows against the far wall, low, hairy, misshapen forms clutching long, pointed spears. A tough, cynical part of his mind saw the entire scene in terms of a grocery tabloid headline—Night Watchman Attacked by Trolls—but the more instinctual portion of his brain was making him scream, had let loose the bladder muscle which held back his piss.

  Now the shapes were moving, growing, becoming more human, evolving upward through the evolutionary scale until they stood erect. The smells of blood and wine were strong in the air, combined with a familiar underlying muskiness. One of the figures was eating something and threw it in front of him. A partially devoured chipmunk.

  Turning, still screaming, trying to run, trying to escape, Ron slipped on the bloody floor. His right foot flew out from under him, twisting painfully, and the door which he’d been holding open with his left foot began to close. In the last few seconds of light, he saw with exaggerated clarity the wet red cement in front of his face, the segment of muscled animal bone beneath his nose.

  Desperately in the sudden darkness, he tried to push himself to his feet, tried to pull himself along the floor, but he was not quick enough.

  Behind him, the creatures were laughing, screaming, jabbering excitedly.

  The first spear entered through his crotch.

  From ten to twelve, between the crowded first hour and the noon rush, the bank was virtually dead, the only sounds in the light, air-conditioned lobby the relaxed, easy banter of the tellers, the muffled click of calculator keys, and the low drone of the soft rock Muzak which played incessantly over the bank’s ceiling speakers.

  April hated this time of day. For most of her coworkers it was the high point of their shift, the time when they could drop the public mask of servile civility, when they could relax and catch up on the bookkeeping or other behind-the-scenes paperwork which kept the bank running smoothly and efficiently. But these two hours always left her feeling bored and restless. Whatever else s
he was, she was a good loan officer, and she seldom if ever had any extra paperwork or leftover duties to perform. As a result, she usually found herself desperately searching for something to do, some way to look busy. Once she was settled, she knew, things would be different, she would be able to hang a little looser, but for the first few weeks on the job it would not do to look idle in front of her supervisor.

  As far as she could tell, her new supervisor was a nice, if rather boring, soul, a family man with framed photos of his overweight wife and two preteen daughters set up on his desk. He was dedicated to his job but not fanatic and not overly strict, someone with whom it would be easy to work.

  Someone of whom Dion would definitely approve.

  It was strange to think that way, to use her son as a behavioral guideline, to mentally consult his taste and beliefs while making simple day-to-day judgments and decisions, but she respected him, she trusted his opinions. Somehow, despite her best unintentional efforts to screw him up, Dion had turned out to be a boy she not only loved but admired, a person with both feet firmly planted on the ground, who knew who he was and where he was going. She was aware of the fact that in many ways their relationship was the inverse of what it was supposed to be. She often looked to him for guidance and support, for strength she did not possess, and though this was something she felt comfortable with, she knew her son did not feel the same way. He would have been happier with a more traditional mother, the kind who offered heartwarming advice while making brownies, the kind who had all the answers all the time and could not only run her own life perfectly but could make sure that the lives of her family ran the same way.

  Not the kind of mother she was.

  And definitely not the kind she’d had.