Brimstone

by Daniel Foster

  Mrs. Colson hurried down the boardwalk towards him. She was in town early. “Mr. Vilner!” she called. Garret glowered into the shop. Mr. Vilner’s my Pa.

  “Why Mr. Vilner, good morning. Is everything alright?” She smiled like the big fake gossip that she was. He ignored her completely and pushed the door open a little wider. Through the crack, the familiar shapes of tool table, both anvils, forge, etc. were draped in gloom. Nothing stirred. It looked normal. Felt normal. Smelled normal.

  Garret stiffened at the feel of her pudgy, cold hand on his arm.

  “I’m so sorry about your Pa,” she dripped.

  Yeah. It’s killing you. Your husband came and took all his work away from me yesterday.

  “Is there anything John and I can do to help?” she asked.

  Die? He thought. But I’d settle for you hitting yourself in the face with a hammer.

  Garret wanted to give her a piece of his mind, but he knew ignoring her would drive her crazy, so that’s what he did. He pushed the door open a little wider. Maybe if that thing’s still here, I can push her in and it’ll forge her into a hand basket or something useful. Or at least something that doesn’t talk.

  “Well,” she said, still trying to sound nice. “You let me know if there’s anything you need and I’ll be there.”

  With itchy ears and a smile that needs punched in its big fat teeth, I’ll bet.

  She was still trying to be nice, but getting huffy. “There must be something you need.”

  Well, come in and lay your head across my anvil, and we’ll see what we can do.

  She walked away. Only then did Garret look at her, imagining how good she’d look with an all-gums smile.

  After another minute of staring into the shop, sniffing, and letting his eyes adjust, Garret decided the not-quite-there thing actually wasn’t there at all. He relaxed a bit. First of all he wanted light, so he opened all the windows as far as they would go, which would let in lots of light as soon as the sun found its way back to the land of the living. He set the lamp on the edge of the forge, lit a scrap of wood from the lamp flame, and soon had a cheery, unnecessarily blazy fire going in the forge.

  Garret stood before the flames, absorbing the warmth and dancing light which made his life good. Oddly though, an uneasiness stirred in him, a desire to be away from the flames. The edge of fear. Then it was gone. Garret pushed the fire around with various tongs and pokers until he had to admit to himself that he wasn’t shaping it for any particular item.

  He piddled at his anvil, inspecting his favorite hammers, as if there was any reason to do so. Hopelessness settled on him. Eventually he’d have to turn and face the empty workbench. Fright crept up his spine. Garret stopped piddling at the tool table and stared into the forge. Nothing made sense. Life was upside down. Life was destroyed. Life was… he didn’t know what life was.

  Behind him, the door opened. In stepped the pinstriped, walrus-moustached bulk of Mr. Fix. Garret stared at him vacantly. Fix regarded Garret in return, his expression a mixture of sadness, compassion, and anger.

  “Thanks,” Garret said.

  “For what?” Fix asked.

  “For… for the sheriff’s office.” Garret dropped his head, hoping Fix wouldn’t see the tears forming. Fix crossed the room and gripped Garret’s right shoulder in his huge hand, but didn’t touch his left. Mr. Fix knew Garret’s shoulder was hurt. He knew and cared. Garret fell apart. The hammer and fuller he’d been holding fell from his hands. He leaned into Mr. Fix, and the big man enclosed him gently in huge arms.

  “It’ll be alright, son,” Fix promised quietly. “It’ll be okay.”

  A long while later, Garret and Mr. Fix sat and talked. Garret sat up on the workbench, and Mr. Fix on a chair Garret had found for him. Beside Garret lay a single piece of steel. It was a cracked bracket from one of the arms on Mr. Fix’s barber chair. It had been cracked for years without causing Fix any problems, but he’d brought it in today to be mended.

  “Son,” Mr. Fix was saying. “My father died when I was about your age. We were a family of potato farmers. It was hard, but we made it.”

  Garret tried to picture Mr. Fix and his pinstripes in a potato field.

  “But I had to make changes I didn’t want to,” Fix continued. “I had to pick up extra work in town.” Fix leaned forward. “Garret, I know you have a worse situation here. A lot worse.” A dark anger flashed across Fix’s features, but he pushed it away. “Mr. Malvern may have ruined you already, son. Don’t wait until you don’t have enough money to leave. You need to think of it now. You need to decide what’s worth doing. And fighting Powell Malvern, that ain’t worth doing.”

  Garret stared at the floor, sad and angry. “But this is our home, Mr. Fix.”

  “Son,” he said gently. “Does it feel like home anymore?”

  Garret shrank. No, not without Pa. “But it isn’t right.” Garret protested. “He can’t just run us out like that.”

  Fix spread his hands in frustration. “There are a few in town who will disobey Malvern. A few’s not enough. We can’t give you enough work to keep your family fed, let alone give you a good life.”

  Garret gritted his teeth and tried to keep his lips from trembling. What about me? What about Sarn and Molly? But Garret didn’t have Molly anymore, did he? He’d lost her too. Mr. Malvern had taken her away, just like he’d taken everything else. Garret had been with Molly so long that his whole world, his whole heart was wrapped up in her. He felt like he was still with her, like she might walk through the door with a lunch basket at any second.

  “It’s not fair!” Garret burst out like a child.

  “No,” Fix said, standing. “It isn’t.”

  He walked to Pa’s anvil and picked up Pa’s cross peen hammer from its spot. No one had touched those tools since Pa had put them there, hours before he died. If it had been anyone else but Mr. Fix, Garret would have jumped him for it.

  Fix crossed the small shop, talking firmly as he came. “This will be the last time I ever call you ‘son’. You aren’t a child anymore, Garret. It’s not fair, it’s not right. But it’s the way it is. This is your shop now. Not your Pa’s.”

  Garret flinched.

  Fix kept coming, resolute. “Stand up and make the decisions that have to be made. From now on, you are in charge of your house, and everyone in it is depending on you.”

  Garret shrank and panic crept up on him.

  “Don’t look away from me,” Mr. Fix said. “Look me in the eye, and take this hammer.” He held it out.

  Garret hesitated. The handle of the hammer hung there, extending from Mr. Fix’s meaty hand. The handle was smooth, worn as the handles of his grandma’s old rolling pin. Worn from ages of use, of touch, of human connection with life and work and laughter and sorrow and sweat.

  Gradually, something began to grow inside Garret. It didn’t feel like bravery or courage, and it certainly didn’t feel like happiness. But maybe, just maybe, it was a tiny piece of resolve.

  A long moment passed. Mr. Fix kept his voice firm.

  “Take your hammer, Mr. Vilner.”

  * * *

  Garret stoked the fire until it was roaring, which he knew better than to do, but at the moment, who cared. Let the whole world know he was a blacksmith. He was Garret Vilner.

  When Mr. Fix had held out the hammer, Garret had shied away from it. Pa was a much bigger man than Garret, by about six inches and seventy pounds. So he’d always used heavier hammers. Garret assumed Pa’s hammers would always be too big for him, but when he’d touched the smooth wood, held firmly in Mr. Fix’s hand, something had changed.

  The handle was worn smooth as silk from ages of use, but it was the same use Garret went through every day. Garret gripped the hammer, and the world began to right itself. Garret loved his Pa. He always would, but the last thing Mr. Fix said before he left was still ringing in Garret’s head.

  “Mr. Vilner, I know who you are, even if you don’t. You feel weak right now, but yo
u aren’t. You’re stronger than your father ever was.”

  How could that be? Pa’s twice my size.

  Garret hoisted Pa’s hammer in his hand and swung, bringing a bell-like clang and a shower of sparks from the orange metal on his anvil. Pa’s hammer wasn’t too heavy. It was perfect. Garret brought the tool down with both strength and control, pounding the steel blank quickly into shape. As he worked, strength trickled into his body, and his senses attuned to his surroundings.

  Mr. Fix was right on most things, and Garret loved the man for what he had said and done to help, but Garret wanted Molly more than anything else in life, and he was going to get her back. She was worth whatever he had to do to bring her home to him.

  Speaking of home, Garret thought. This is where Sarn and Ma and me belong, and nobody’s running us out.

  Garret spent the rest of the day working on his second gift for Molly. He wanted to give her something nice, but he didn’t want it to take forever, so after a couple of false starts, he settled on making her a couple of vine-looking candle holders.

  As he forged through the day, he knew how it would go. He would arrive at the mansion, pebble peck her window and then she would come out. No matter what mood she was in, he would make the best apology of his life, though he wasn’t sure yet what he was apologizing for. Maybe he should apologize for hurting her Daddy. Yes, certainly that, but he wasn’t sure what else. He wasn’t sure of much of anything, but he needed her, and the thought of her face was enough for the moment. He needed to go home and check on Sarn too, but he’d do that later. Maybe much later, depending on how things went with Molly.

  Towards evening, right as dusk fell, the candle stand was finished. It was a small mass of coiled vines with leaves which rose into three budding candle cups. He stood by the window, inspecting it critically in the failing light. To his eye, he hadn’t done a perfect job with a couple of the heart-shaped leaves, but it would have to do. His timing was perfect, darkness would have arrived by the time he reached the mansion. If he’d had the wolfstrap with him, the trip would fly past.

  God, Molly and the wolfstrap together. Could life get better than that? He wanted to be with her so badly, to see her smile, to hear her laugh again, to talk for a while, then to hold her for a longer while and say nothing at all. And the strap, he yearned for that too. To be powerful and free again, part of the earth and air and stars as he ran to Molly’s house. He could hold the candle stand in his mouth. He needed to feel the wolf again, he needed to be it, to breathe into its cavernous lungs and feel—

  A soft rustle interrupted his thoughts.

  Garret turned, trying to ascertain the direction of the sound. Was it a mouse in the corner? His eyes fell on the workbench beside which he was standing. The wolfstrap lay there beneath the window, not a foot from him. It was all warm and grey and touched with the reds and oranges of the failing daylight. Garret was unbuttoning his shirt before he realized he’d made the decision.

  * * *

  Low and propelled by three, sometimes four legs, Garret flew through the woods. The candle stand was less comfortable in his mouth than he’d thought it would be, and the taste of iron was overpowering, though not as overpowering as the stink of his own human hands which clung to the candle stand.

  The longer he ran as a wolf, the less he felt he needed to think. Thought was tiring, and eventually vexing to his wolf mind, as it distracted him from all the more interesting things the world had to offer, now that he could smell, hear, and taste all of it. But Molly was waiting for him, he knew that even in his wolf mind. She would be in her den and he would be with her. They would snuggle together and share one another’s warmth, and all would be well.

  A dangerous whiff caught Garret’s nose. He slowed, folded his ears back, and proceeded at a prowl. The scent was gone now because the wind had switched, but when it had gusted briefly from the south, he had caught the unmistakable scent of sickness. An animal was ill, but not in the normal way. It was diseased of the mind.

  Garret stopped and settled behind a rock to wait. He had seen this sort of thing once before, but in his weak, gangly human body. He was a wolf now, and he would see it again, and see what his wolf senses had to tell him about this aberration. He heard them coming up the draw. There were two, not one, apparently. The leaves were all on the ground now, and without their covering in the treetops, the wind moaned through the branches. Garret inched forward and stuck his muzzle around the rock. He became part of the rock, part of the ground, his fur ruffling in the wind the same as the fallen leaves.

  The sick animals came together, one of them with faltering steps, the other on a spastic zig-zagging path. Perverted though their scents were by the reek of the disease, Garret recognized them, and it made his hackles stand up. They were his cousins. Foxes. Garret rounded the rock and stepped into their path. His skin crawled. One of them stopped and stared. The other continued tacking towards him, no light in its eyes.

  The fur and skin hung loose from both of them, splitting in red fissures as if the foxes were ready to erupt from their own skin. One of the zig-zagging fox’s eyes was dangling from its socket. As Garret watched, it stopped and scratched frantically at its face, tearing the eyeball away completely. The other fox swayed. It sat and began to pant.

  The zig-zagging fox suddenly rushed Garret. He flinched, and the single second of unpreparedness was enough for it to be on him. Its teeth flashed, but instinct saved him. Garret had the fox by the throat, and dragged it quickly through the leaves, buying himself some space from the second fox, if it was waiting for the opportunity.

  The fox in Garret’s jaws was crazy, tearing its own throat to shreds on Garret’s teeth, trying to twist around and bite him. Garret bit down quickly, and the fox’s vertebrae crackled. It didn’t die immediately. Instead, it wrenched itself around the last inch it needed, and drove its sharp teeth into Garret’s shoulder.

  Garret ground his bite down, and the fox shuddered and died. Garret spat it onto the leaves and hacked. Once in his mouth, the horrible taste of it was overpowered by a taste more subtle, but much worse. It was like death that was too twisted to die. It was the taste of the creature which had bitten the fox, the flavor of the monster that had infected them by leaving behind a little of itself in their bodies. It was the smell of the creature that had killed his Pa.

  The creature’s attack came from nowhere. One second, Garret was standing at the ready, warily watching the second fox walk in circles, making plaintive yips. The next second, Garret was flying through the air with the smell of death in his nose.

  He tumbled into the leaves and even his wolf reflexes couldn’t right him before the creature was on him. A palm, bigger than a skillet, pinned his head to the ground as easily as he could have put his thumb on an insect. He could see the fingers, long and strong and ridiculously large, then they covered his eyes.

  The creature spoke to his mind, pushing its thoughts and feelings into his own as if his brain was mud for it to tromp through. It was invasive, like having someone handle his nakedness in the dark when he thought he was alone. It made him shudder.

  You drove her away. You made her hate you. You’ve hurt her as no one else ever could.

  Garret scrambled in the leaves, legs digging for leverage, but he might as well have been trying to shift a locomotive off of himself.

  You’ve killed her, the creature said. You’ve killed the best part of her. Where was her happiness when she was with you? Your unkindness poisons everyone.

  Garret’s struggles quieted as the words sank into him. The last time he’d seen Molly, she’d tried to slap him. She’d been miserable. She was so often miserable with him. He made her that way.

  No, it’s not true, he thought. But he knew it was. It had to be, because it was the thing he’d always feared.

  I didn’t hurt her. But he knew he did.

  The creature spoke again. Go and see what you have done. It released him and slipped away.

  Garret lay in the le
aves. The second fox lay in front of him. It was a mangled wad of orange and grey fur. The creature had crushed it while talking to Garret.

  Garret pushed himself to his paws. He stared in the direction of the Malvern’s mansion, just over the next wooded slope. He tentatively sniffed the breeze coming down the hill. He listened for any stray sounds over the slope. Nothing. Tail between his legs, candle stand forgotten, Garret stole towards the mansion.

  * * *

  It took him several minutes to go the last few hundred yards because he kept hesitating. Go, and see what you have done, it had told him. He didn’t want to see. He knew he had done something terrible, though he wasn’t sure what it was. The crest of the slope was before him. If he took another step, if he so much as raised his head, he would see over it. After a long moment, he did. And he saw…

  Nothing.

  The mansion looked the same as always. The normal smells of people and food drifted from it, though stale with age. The statue garden and flower garden looked the same, though a few weeds were beginning to spring with the flowers. Garret advanced onto the lawn, though his wolf instincts begged him to stay within the cover of the trees. He stole from statue to statue, staying low, sniffing and listening. He heard nothing. The house was dead silent on the inside. Neither were there any lamps lit behind the windows.

  A lump grew in his chest. He stretched his neck up and inhaled the mansion’s olfactory signature. Indeed it was stale and old. Days old. Garret stole to the corner of the mansion and slinked down the side of it, smelling and listening as he went. He sniffed porches and window sills, doors and handrails. All of the human scents were old, their life-warmth long gone. Garret sprinted, ears flat to his skull. He rounded the mansion, sniffing, even licking at every door knob and door handle for Molly’s scent, for her touch. It was there, but old and dead. She was gone. Long gone. They had left the night he’d last seen her.