Caitlin stood before the tree with her back to them. She was wearing her nightgown and she held Otis by the scruff of his neck in her right hand.
“What the hell?” Henry focused his eyes. He pushed to open the door but Isaac pressed it shut.
“Wait,” the boy said quietly. “It’s going to feed the tree.” He returned to watch, excited. “It’s so scary!”
Henry furrowed his brow at the boy and looked back out at the tree Caitlin stood before. As his eyes adjusted, he started to notice the damp spots of dirt and the blood that was trickling from her fingers.
An imploding panic collapsed in Henry’s chest. He ripped Isaac away and became deaf to his words, throwing the door open.
“Caitlin,” he said quietly.
She twisted to face him. Henry fell back, feeling a fat scream bottleneck in his throat.
A thick jagged gash crossed her neck like a toothless bloody mouth. Similar wounds marked her wrists and legs. Her eyes were gray pinholes that darted about. Otis struggled under her grip. In her other hand was the rusty grape shears, already wet with blood.
“No...” Henry whispered to himself, to her, to whatever there was that could make the image he was seeing cease to be.
The thing that was Caitlin took Otis and ran the sharp edge of the shears across the dog’s throat. She pulled the dog’s head back and hung its neck over the dirt beneath the tree, bleeding out until there was nothing left. The corpse was tossed aside and Caitlin resumed her stand under the tree’s shadow. There was a low groan as the tree grew several inches.
“Ewww! Gross!” Isaac said, cackling.
Henry turned and saw the boy standing behind the screen door with a look of amazement he often showed while watching his favorite monster movies. When he returned his eyes to Caitlin, she resumed her silent stance before the tree and her eyes darted about wildly. A bird flew by and her hand shot out, grabbing it. She marched stiffly towards the tree’s base, twisted the bird’s head off, and squeezed the blood onto the ground.
When the bird was completely drained, Caitlin tossed it aside and waited again near the outskirts of the tree’s shadow.
Henry took a step forward.
“Don’t get close,” Isaac warned. “She might hurt you.”
“Caitlin...” Henry said, his eyes filling with tears. He said her name again and again. Her eyes darted about, blind to his form as she searched for more prey. He stepped back until he met the screen door and it clacked dully under his body. The twisting ache in his chest began to grow and Henry clenched his hands. A thick pain filled his head, growing until he felt himself going blind, until the darkness filled every nook and cranny in his mind.
“Are you ready to see the King?” the boy asked.
~ ~ ~
Isaac awoke to a television full of snow. It had stopped playing stories a few days ago, but now and again he would check to see if things changed. Sometimes he slept on the couch under the glow of static in hopes that when he awoke, the stories would be there, waiting for him.
He had been dreaming of his father. It was always the same; a bucket of popcorn while sitting on the couch and watching a scary movie. His mother was always standing silently in the kitchen under a single light, catching moths when they flew near her and eating them greedily. There were others like her as well, standing beneath a cone of light and eating the things that flew near.
His father was always nice to him in his dreams, putting an arm around him and laughing at his stories. He never called him a mongoloid or screamed at him for being late. In dreams, his father was normal, not at all like he was now that he cared for the King.
The King makes him so mean, the boy thought. Or maybe it just ate the nice parts.
The ideas became muddled in his head and he let them go. A half-finished peanut butter sandwich had several flies hovering about it. Isaac waved them away and chewed the stale bread. He wiped his face clean with his sleeve and got up to check on his mother. It was hot that day and even from a distance he could smell the stench.
She stood on the outskirts of the tree’s shadow. Tiny corpses circled her and the husk of Otis’ body had a static buzz of flies above it.
“Good morning big monster,” the boy called out to her, waving.
Her gray eyes locked on to him, then left when a bird flew by, out of reach. Seconds later a plane passed above them, darting in and out of the sky like a swiftly moving shark.
Isaac walked back through the house. He was sad that Otis was gone, but it was more fun to him to have a big monster to take care of instead. And it was even more fun to have an entire town of monsters to take care of! There were big monsters and little monsters, all waiting under the black trees that grew in his neighborhood.
He went out front and grabbed his bike, checking his watch.
“Oh no!” he cried out. When he looked up he saw that the sun had crossed over onto the other side, knowing that night would follow as soon as it was gone. “So late.” He jumped on his bike and left home, being careful not to drift too far into the shadows of a tree where a big monster waited. Sometimes there was a dog or a boy that waited beneath a tree, but they couldn’t reach out very far. Sometimes he saw people watching him from behind the curtains of their windows, hiding when their eyes met.
That’s because they’re afraid of me, the boy thought, smiling. He howled like a werewolf while biking down Route One into Chadds Ford.
After a half an hour of biking, he reached Walnut Street. Sweat broke over his back as he climbed up the hill. In the distance there was a black tree that cut a hole into the setting sun. Samantha Hall stood beneath it and in the brief moment that Isaac watched, she thrust a hand to the ground, capturing a squirrel. She marched towards the trunk of the tree and twisted the animal’s head off, bleeding it dry.
“Gross!” Isaac shouted with childish glee. He pedaled on until reaching the dirt road that he called Monsters Road. The ground was hard to bike on, so he took to walking the remaining distance, entering the cavern of twisting trees that preceded the place where the King grew. After several minutes he saw the giant black tree and the little monster that sat in its shadow, a Doberman Pinscher whose throat opened into a rotten jack-o-lantern’s grin. It waited patiently for prey to come near it, easing toward the edge of the tree’s shadow when Isaac walked past. Carcasses surrounded the tree with shimmering clouds of gnats.
The King didn’t drink as much, Isaac noticed. Its babies were the mouths, but the King was sort of like the heart and only drank now and again. He wondered if there were other Kings out in the world, if each town had its own King...
And maybe there’s other little monsters like me, he thought, smiling. That would be fun.
He set his bike down and stepped onto the front porch of the house. The door swung open before he even knocked and the boy took a step back.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Henry asked, taking a step into the light.
“Sorry,” Isaac said. He looked down at the ground sheepishly, but inside he didn’t feel too bad about it. He knew it was just part of being the King’s witch that made his father so mean. He also knew that if he didn’t help father spread the mouths of the King, it would drink father instead. That was what happened to the last witch. He even saw her once when he went inside the house. Her body was a mass of petrified wood with black veins that snaked in and out of her chalky skin.
“Don’t sorry me you mongoloid,” the man said. Half of his teeth had fallen out and a large sore was growing on the side of his face like a slowly burning hole, the markings of the King and its thirst. “Just deliver the seeds and keep the harvest on schedule.” He held out the envelopes, each one unmarked.
“Okay.” Isaac took the letters, avoiding looking at his father’s face. He tucked them into a small bag he slung over his shoulder and grabbed his bike. Before leaving, he turned to say goodbye. The door slammed shut in response.
He rushed through Monsters Road and once the ground turned
back to pavement, he hopped back on his bike again. Night was beginning to fall. He didn’t mind though. It made it easier to find people, to spot the glimmer of their lights behind closed curtains. All he needed to do was slide the letter into the mail slot, or slip it under the door and the next day a monster would be in the front yard, feeding another mouth of the King. His father would live to serve another day of the harvest.
A flicker of light caught his peripheral. He looked over at a house he hadn’t been to before and pedaled towards it. He was tired, but he didn’t mind feeling worn out. It made sleep come faster and after he delivered the mail, he could go home and sleep on the couch. Dreams waited for him there. Dreams of his father, and popcorn, and a Television filled with stories.
The moon shined above. He gave a high-pitched howl and pedaled on into the night, filling the world with beasts.
A NIGHT TO REMEMBER
TIM MARQUITZ
Jeb watched the rain patter against the windows, tiny halos of light against the glass. Like dying stars, they faded and fell victim to gravity, pooling in the shallow depression of the sill.
The sun had been out when Jeb first came to Lucy’s Diner, but it had done nothing to chase the fall chill from the air. He’d seen the storm approaching, clouds looming on the horizon, billows of gray and black leeching the white from the sky. Still he’d come, hoping, praying, that Malcolm would hold true to his word and bring the boys.
“I’ll be there at five, Pops,” Malcolm’s voice had said over the crackling telephone. “I promise,” had been the last words he’d said before the line went dead.
Jeb didn’t even need to glance at his watch to know five o’clock had passed long ago. The jukebox cycled through its songs every hour he’d learned. Its motor hummed through the speakers as the needle reset, a momentary lull before the sharp-edged blast of “Heartbreak Hotel” erupted out of nowhere, startling him every time. It filled the diner with a discordant vibration that set his spoon to rattling against the plate, the singer’s voice sinking lower and lower in his throat as to be almost incomprehensible as the song progressed. Jeb had heard it four times since he’d sat down at a table furthest from the jukebox, but that distance did nothing to lessen the impact of the lyrics his ears plucked from the air, their sorrow too appropriate to be coincidence.
Not ten years ago, he would have scoffed at the idea of loneliness, of depression, a grown man wailing like a dog left out in the rain. He’d spent years at war, munitions exploding overhead while he clung to life and watched his fellow soldiers die just feet from where he hunkered down and had never felt the touch of either. Carol and Malcolm had been safe at home, there for him when he returned. What more could he need?
The intervening years answered that question with all the subtlety of a Nazi blitzkrieg. Less than six months after he’d returned to the States, Carol collapsed. A blood clot triggered a stroke. She was dead before Jeb reached the hospital, and he’d never gotten to say goodbye. Suddenly, it was just him and twelve year-old Malcolm. He soon learned war had been the easier of the two responsibilities.
“You want another cup, hon?” The waitress’ voice startled him as she came up alongside the table. Her narrow lips brightened with a smile as she leaned over his shoulder.
“I better not, Barb.” He slid his hand over the mug on instinct and motioned toward the window with his chin. “Should probably get going before it gets any worse. I don’t swim as good as I used to.”
A gust of wind peppered the window with rain as if to emphasize his point. Barb chuckled lightly, her blurry reflection nodded at him from the window as he dug for his wallet. The late night dinner crowd chattered on in the background.
“Don’t you worry about it, Jeb,” she told him, squeezing his arm gently. “It’s just been coffee tonight.”
He sighed and thanked her. She’d known Malcolm was supposed to stop by, and Jeb’d been waiting to order dinner then. He never did eat.
“Next time, right?”
Jeb nodded. “Yeah, next time.” It was what she told him every time Malcolm failed to show. It had become ritual; good intentioned, but it was soulless, empty. A wave and good morning to a stranger in passing. They were just words. They were meaningless without hope, and he’d so little of that left.
Barb gave him a parting smile and ran off to fill someone else’s cup. Jeb watched her as she went about her business. He knew he should go home, traipse the couple blocks back to the tiny hole his super called an apartment, but his legs were of a different mind. A dull, deep ache ran their length, pins and needles accompanying his every movement. He rubbed his thighs and imagined he could feel the invasive lump lodged against his spine. The doctors said it was malignant. He’d been given two options: cut the cancer out and be crippled or live until he couldn’t live any longer. Jeb had chosen the latter and time was growing short. He had planned to tell Malcolm tonight.
The metallic ding of the bell over the door broke through his reverie. Jeb glanced across the way, a gust of cool air and the sharp scent of rain chasing a ragged customer inside. The diner quieted as he shambled in and made his way to the nearly empty counter. His sodden feet dragged across the tiles, leaving glistening swirls behind. The sky loosed a rumble as he settled on a stool and eased the dripping hood of his jacket back.
Slowly, most of the patrons went back to their dinners. A group of young men in black leather jackets were gathered about a nearby table. They muttered and motioned in the man’s direction, but Jeb could hear none of what was said though there was no mistaking the disdain. They talked among themselves but remained in their seats.
Barb went over to greet the newcomer, and Jeb couldn’t pull his eyes from the man whose long, matted hair glistened under the dim bulbs illuminating the countertop. It was clear the man was homeless, but there was something about him that defied description; some vague sense of distrust that Jeb couldn’t put his finger on.
From where Jeb sat, the man’s profile sliced through the shadows. Deep furrows cleaved his leathern skin, experience worn into his face, every mile having lefts its mark. Wild hairs sprouted from his chin and upper lip, obscuring his mouth and chin. Streaks of gray ran through the knotted mess, dirt and debris woven in like ornaments on a weathered Christmas tree. His eyes were sunken pits of darkness. A deeper gloom resided in their depths, dots of white drowning in their midst. The man sipped at the coffee Barb had poured for him. His calloused fingers and swollen knuckles were in sharp contrast to the genteel way he clasped at the mug. He sat with stiff-backed pride. Hard times had found the man, but Jeb was certain it hadn’t always been so. There was an air of culture about him so out of sync with his appearance.
After a few moments, the clatter of the diner returning to its glory, Hank Williams serenading the storm, Jeb decided he’d been at Lucy’s long enough. It was time to go. The rain had picked up, an incessant drumming on the roof. He was sure he’d be soaked before he made it home. Jeb groaned as he pushed his chair back, making room to stretch his legs, knowing it would be several minutes before he got them working again. He’d sat too long. His toes tingled as he did, numb in his shoes, blood barely reaching them. They’d be the first victim of the thing gnawing at my back, he thought with casual regret. Nothing could be done about that, but he prayed he would have a few more minutes with Malcolm and the boys before then.
He set his hands flat against the tabletop, moving to stand when he noticed the homeless man watching him. The room went cold then. Jeb stumbled and slipped back into his seat as though shoved. The scrutiny lingered a moment longer, his penetrant gaze making its way across the dinner, lighting in turn on every person there. Something judgmental lurked behind his eyes. Jeb’s breath grew thick in his lungs when the man turned the stare back on him, a sudden pressure tightening his chest. He blinked away the moisture welling at his eyes, rubbing them dry with the backs of his hands.
When he looked again, the stool where the man sat was empty. He hadn’t even seen him move,
but there he was, standing near the center of the diner. The layers of his clothing still ran with silver tracers of rain. Barb cast an uncertain glance Jeb’s way, but all he could do was shrug. He felt no fear, the war having stolen such sentimentality from him long ago, but there was something about the homeless man that worried him. Frail and battered by the world, there was more cloth to him than flesh, but he stood rigid, seemingly unbroken.
The man coughed, the wet, phlegmy bark silencing the place as effectively as a rifle report across no man’s land.
“Did you need something else, hon?” Barb asked. A peal of thunder rattled the windows on the heels of her words.
The man ignored her, raising his hands at his sides as though looking to capture the rain. He cleared his throat, the wash of his dark eyes falling over the assembled diners. Jeb couldn’t help but picture a preacher gathering his flock.
“The night comes...” he started, his voice low but the words carried, undisguised conviction imbibing them with steel. “Principium et finis. Utu dims in honor of Nammu’s return.”
Jeb could understand nothing of the man’s words, but he could feel their weight. They settled heavy in his ears.
“Maybe you should cop a breeze,” one of the young men said amidst a wash of laughter. He stood up from his table where the other three lurked, his friends urging him on with malicious smiles and muttered barbs.
The stranger didn’t spare him a glance. “Nammu, Engur, Tiamat, exsurge!”
“Man, I told you—”
Whatever else the young man might have said was cut short by the slap of something striking the window. All eyes snapped to the sound, silence forming in its wake. A small brown rat hovered in mid-air for an instant before slipping down the glass as frantic limbs scrambled for purchase.
“Long has the mother slumbered...”
American Nightmare Page 18