Prodigal Blues

by Gary A Braunbeck

  I could see the entrance in the distance, framed by timbers as Christopher said it would be. Outside it was deep gray, the rain pounding down and the thunder so loud I expected it to rip through the roof and bring all that limestone crashing down on my head. I took several slow, deep breaths, feeling some strength return to me, hesitantly, like a child afraid it was about to be scolded or punished.

  Christopher was just inside the entrance, fiddling with a barrel. A barrel strapped to a dolly. A barrel strapped to a dolly with all sort of wires running around it.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  He checked all the connections, checked a device I assumed was the timer, then set it aside and started walking back toward me.

  He stopped by the door to the trailer, his face expressionless. "You okay?"

  "What… what the hell did you do that for?"

  "You were pretty out of control there, dude. If I'd realized that just stopping to use the toilet and get some food was going to cause you to flip out, I'd've made you take dump in one of the coolers."

  I shook my head, which was a mistake because it sent a wave of dizziness and nausea rolling through my entire body. "…didn't have to use the goddamn bathroom… I found out about your—"

  He opened the trailer's door. "In a minute, Mark. Hold that thought."

  Light from inside the trailer spilled out against the walls. They were wet, and dark, and raggedly uneven; if it weren't for the supports around us, I would have sworn we were deep inside a grave.

  Christopher emerged a few seconds later pushing—of all things—a fairly-expensive motorcycle, a wide one made for long travel, complete with windshield, side compartments for storing small pieces of luggage, and a small rack across the back of the seat.

  "Where'd you get that?" I managed to say.

  "Saving up cigarette coupons—where do you think I got it? I stole it from one of the rest stops we made before we picked you up. Arnold and me painted it and changed the plates—that's where he got the bright idea about painting the trailer. You gonna be all right there for a minute?"

  "But your family—"

  "—is going to be real glad to see us. I hope you're hungry, because you can bet that Mom's going to make you eat something. No guest ever leaves our home unfed. You stand warned." He rolled the motorcycle up to the entrance and leaned it against the wall. I noticed for the first time that he had some other things up there, as well; a duffel bag and several shoulder bags which held, I assumed, the computers.

  As he came back to help me to my feet, I said: "Don't you want to know?"

  "I already saw the address, I don't need to know anything more. It's about forty-five from the truck stop. Be there in a jiffy, you'll see."

  He led me toward the opened door of the trailer.

  The smell hit me hard; it was much more than human stink—although the odor of old piss and shit was more than enough on its own; the smell of the bodies inside was overpowering. It was this thick, moist, heavy, spoiled, meaty, swollen reek that assumed invisible physical shape within and without; the kind of smell that immediately sinks down through every layer of skin and takes about a month to wash off and whose coating in my nostrils would probably never completely go away.

  The strange thing is, I gagged but did not throw up.

  Christopher helped me up into the doorway. "I thought you might like to meet my former host. You know—witness what may or may not be his final words and all that."

  "Do I have to?"

  "It would mean a lot to me, Mark, if I didn't have to face him alone this last time."

  I looked into his eyes and saw a frightened little boy still hiding back there. "Sure thing, buddy. Sure thing."

  We moved into the trailer. I was amazed at how quickly the stink went away. I realize now that the smell didn't go anywhere, it was just that my olfactory senses had had enough, tuned out, and stopped sending signals to my brain. The stink was still there, my nose was simply pretending it wasn't.

  The lights in here still worked—which is why Christopher had left the bus running, I now realized—so everything was easily visible.

  The interior of the Airstream had been stripped bare of everything—seats, built-in appliances, tables, even the toilet and carpeting was gone. The floor was bare metal, covered in dust and torn shreds of paper and stray sections of electrical wire, as well as tire tracks and blood.

  The two bodies—one of them naked—were laid out next to each other at the far end of the trailer where the bomb had once been. They were both face-down, for which I was grateful; despite what these two had been a part of, I knew that their eyes would be frozen in final accusation: How could you be a part of this?

  Okay, Dad; if you were in my position, what would you do?

  Whatever it took, that's what I'd do. Whatever it took to end this as soon as possible, that's what I'd do. I love you, Mark.

  Love you too, Dad.

  A duffel bag sat near the door, beside which was large tool box; Christopher knelt down to open the lid. I lost my balance a little, caught myself on the door frame, and did not collapse. The maps fell out of my pocket and hit the floor at an angle, skittering a few feet to stop at the foot of a large cardboard box that, according to its markings, once held a new water heater.

  Christopher pulled something from the tool box and set it to the side, then closed the lid, locked it with a padlock, and tossed the key outside into the darkness.

  Something moved inside the box, made a muffled sound, then kicked out at the edge, causing the box to move a few more inches in our direction.

  "I'm surprised he's got that much energy left," said Christopher, walking over to the box and moving it aside. The back had been cut out so as to set flush against the wall.

  Christopher threw the box down, then kicked it over by the bodies.

  The man chained up against the far wall looked like a skeleton covered in fish-belly skin. He was pale, emaciated, and covered from the waist down in the semi-dried remains of his own filth. He too was naked, except for the heavy layers of bandage covering the stump of his right leg, which had been removed just above the knee. Both his right and left arms were manacled, and none-too-gently, judging from the open sores encircling his wrists. The chains on his arms were short—less than three feet—and were soldered into opposite walls. The chain attached to the manacle around his left ankle was much longer—easily eight feet—and was soldered into place just below the other left-side chain. His mouth was stuffed with a small rubber ball held in place with a thick rubber band that encircled his head, which had been scalped; sections of skull were visible here and there through the ragged, bloody, chewed-looking tissue that remained. Darkened trails of dried blood ran straight down over his face, pooling around the top edge of the blinking electronic collar around his neck, then dribbling down onto his chest. His body was covered in gashes, cuts, and burns, all of them in various stages of healing. Directly behind him hung an IV packet from which snaked a clear, thin plastic tube whose other end disappeared up his nose and was held in place there by medical tape. I assumed the IV was some kind of liquid nutrient used to keep him alive. He glowed with sweat, making his pale flesh seem all the more ghostly in the harsh light. His face was drawn and hollow, covered in ten-day-old beard speckled with gray.

  But his eyes were the worst.

  Have you ever noticed, whenever you see pictures of serial killers, rapists, mass-murderers, that all of them seem to have the same dead eyes, forever frozen in a cool, detached, hundred-yard stare, as if they've given up trying to make you understand the logic behind their actions and so are content in themselves by staring at their goal you'll never be worthy enough to gaze upon? Once, in college, a friend of mine was doing a photograph collage for an art project. She took photos of Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, and about a dozen others whose names I don't remember and don't want to, and she cut out their eyes, interchanging them with each other—Dahmer got Gacy's, Gacy got Manson's, Manson
got Bundy's, and so on. When she was done we both stood back and looked at the results.

  You couldn't tell she'd done a thing to any of them.

  They all had the exact same eyes—

  —You are not worthy enough to understand—

  —just like Grendel's, that stared out dispassionately and patiently from within dark circles and above puffy, discolored bags. He did not blink as Christopher approached him, checked the IV, then removed the ball and rubber band and gently pulled the tube from his nose and stomach.

  "Don't swallow, don't swallow," he said to Grendel in a soothing voice. The tube came out and flopped on the floor, snaking around and spitting out clear liquid. Christopher grabbed the free end of the tube and clamped it closed, then stood up and walked over to the chain and manacle holding Grendel's right arm in place.

  Not once during all of this did Grendel look at Christopher.

  Instead, he stared unblinking at my face.

  Unlike the "distributor" at the rest stop, Grendel's gaze nailed my feet to the floor. Until this moment, I had never really embraced the idea of evil being something pure, something compelling, seductive, charismatic, and attractive.

  Now I did. What stared back at me from behind those eyes was something so purely evil, so flawlessly degenerate, so perfectly perverse and mad that it seemed almost benevolent.

  I managed to look away just before he spoke in a voice that sounded like rusty nails being wrenched from rotten wood.

  "You have a new friend, Christopher." So sing-songy in that voice from nightmare.

  "Yes, I do."

  "Does your new friend have a name?"

  "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

  Grendel's head snapped around in Christopher's direction. "Never use contractions like that in my presence! Do you understand?"

  Christopher paused and smiled down at him. "Oooooh, I'm shakin' in my shoes." And then kicked Grendel squarely in the chest. Grendel jerked backward, banging the back of his head against the metal wall, then groaned, shook it off, and glared up, his breathing heavy and fast.

  "I suppose you feel that I had that coming to me," he said. "Very well, my little boy. I will give that to you."

  "You're too kind. There are no words to express my gratitude."

  "Do not mock me, Christopher."

  "Seems to me you're not in much of a position to do anything about it."

  "Situations change."

  They glared at one another. Then Grendel gave a short, phlegmy laugh and look toward me. "I do not believe I have had the pleasure, sir. Who might you be?"

  "One of the listening North Danes."

  His eyes widened and his smile widened. "Then you know of me already?"

  "'Rage-inflamed, wreckage-bent, he ripped open the jaws of the hall.' Yeah, I've heard some things."

  "How marvelous—though the passage you quoted leads me to believe that you have been exposed to one of the more bumbling translations of the story."

  "My education is what you might call incomplete."

  "I see. And do you not find me attractive? Even in this unfortunate state?"

  "Not particularly."

  "Then you must allow me the chance to redeem myself in your eyes."

  "Not possible."

  His smile slithered wider. "Everything is possible, good sir."

  Christopher unlocked his right arm, letting it drop free, then stepped over beside me. For a few moments Grendel neither said anything nor looked at us; he was too busy shaking some feeling back into his arm.

  "You should pick up the rubber ball and squeeze it," said Christopher. "It'll help get your hand back in working order."

  "How ingenious," said Grendel, picking up the ball.

  It was only after he'd grabbed the ball and was squeezing away that something else caught his attention; he leaned forward—insomuch as he could—and looked at the floor.

  At the maps that had fallen from my pocket.

  "My, my, may," he said, looking up at us and smiling. "Do my eyes deceive, or are those maps of the lovely Kentucky hills?"

  Christopher looked down at them, then at Grendel. "Yeah, so what?"

  "'Yeah, so what?'" Grendel repeated in a mocking, childish voice. "My God, how ugly your voice has become, how sloppy and ungracious your speech. I am ashamed."

  "I'll learn to live with your disappointment."

  Grendel made an amused noise, then twisted his head slightly to get a better view of the maps. "Kentucky, indeed." His eyes looked up but his head remained still. "So we have come home, have we, Christopher?"

  "That's right."

  "Of course. How wonderful for you. How delightful. I assume that the others are now back home, all safe and warm and snuggly."

  "Yes."

  "That moves me, Christopher. Sincerely. Can you not see how deeply, deeply moved I am? To think of all the effort and planning that you must have done to bring all of this about… why, it almost makes me not ashamed of you."

  "Fuck you."

  "Unchain me, then. Oh, I see—it was an insult, not a request. A pity. I do feel rather amorous, despite everything. But then, you always did have that effect on me, Christopher-my-favorite-child. How beautiful you are. Has your new friend seen your actual face?"

  "Yes."

  Grendel looked at me. "Did you appreciate the skill of my handiwork?"

  "Not really."

  "Not really? Ah, well—the ability to truly appreciate a work of art is something acquired and refined over time, after all. Worry not—my feelings are not in the least hurt, nor are my sensibilities in any way offended."

  "I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear that," I said.

  "Well, naturally, it would not do to have you worrying yourself over it, would it? I find that, while guilt is such a useful thing, unearned and unnecessary guilt is far too messy and distasteful to bother with. It has rarely served my purposes well."

  "You are one smarmy motherfucker, you know that?"

  "I choose to take that as a compliment. Now, do please pardon me." He looked down at the maps again, then at Christopher. "Tell me, my lovely boy—how is the family?"

  Christopher started. "Uh… I haven't seen them yet, but we've got the address."

  "Oh, it is we who have the address, is it?" He looked at me. "I do believe I detect the lingering aroma of onion rings." His eyes sparkled. "You know, don't you?"

  "Shut up."

  "What's he talking about?" asked Christopher.

  I took hold of his arm. "We need to step outside for a minute, buddy."

  "What for?" His voice rose on the second word.

  "Because we do."

  "Oh, please," said Grendel. "Do tell him in front of me."

  I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction.

  "Tell me what?" shouted Christopher.

  Grendel shook his head. "My dear, lovely child, come here to me."

  "…no…"

  "I SAID COME HERE TO ME! DO IT NOW!"

  On auto-pilot, Christopher began moving away from me. I grabbed him and pulled him back toward the door.

  "My dear, dear lovely boy. You have forgotten again, have you not?"

  Christopher began shaking his head, his arms and legs trembling.

  "Oh, dear me," said Grendel. "I thought we discussed this, Christopher. I thought we had settled this once and for all. It does not do for one to keep fibbing to one's self."

  "Shut up!" I screamed.

  Grendel sighed. "Dear, beautiful, perfect Christopher, whose kisses breathe life into my weary soul—do you not remember the conversation we had some time ago?"

  Christopher shook his head harder, making muffled, whimpering noises.

  Grendel looked at me. "One of us must remind him. I would be more than happy to do it."

  "One more word out of your mouth and I'll tear out your tongue with a pair of pliers."

  "This is getting wearisome. Christopher?"

  "…ungh… um… uh…"

  "Look at me, Chri
stopher."

  Christopher held up his hand as if trying to ward off blows from invisible fists.

  "Look at—I SAID LOOK AT ME!"

  Christopher was pulling away toward the other side of the trailer, hands swatting the air.

  I knelt down and grabbed the toolbox, realizing just before I did that it was locked and the key somewhere outside.

  "Do not move away from me, lovely child. Come closer."

  I banged the lid of the tool box with my fist, then turned around and grabbed the duffel bag; it was heavy and there had to be something in here I could use to knock him out with.

  "You are not coming closer, Christopher. How can I hold you if you will not come closer? How can I stroke your cheek and whisper to you of my love and caring? Only I love you, Christopher. Only I can love you…"

  I tore open the top of the duffel bag and grabbed the first hard object I could feel. In the corner, Christopher was pressed against the wall and slowly sliding down to the floor, still shaking his head, still swatting the air, still whimpering.

  "My perfect child, do you not remember? They're all gone."

  "SHUT UP!" I screamed, heaving the skull at his face. It struck him hard in the mouth with an ugly crack!, then fell to the floor and rolled toward me, stopping just a few feet away with its empty eye sockets staring up at my face: How can you be a part of this?

  Christopher was now covering his head with his hands, his whimpers giving way to groans.

  Grendel slowly leaned his head forward, spitting blood and a couple of teeth from his mouth. "They have all been dead for quite some time, Christopher—but of course you have known this all along, have you not?"

  Christopher cried out, shuddered, and began rocking back and forth, back and forth.

  I grabbed another skull and threw it at Grendel, this time hitting him in the stomach; he never blinked.

  "Your father was so distraught over having lost you that he began drinking, remember?"

  "…got the address…" whispered Christopher. "Mom will… make us something to eat… no one leaves her table unfed…"

  "He became a drunk, my boy. We have talked about this but, still, you play these little games with yourself. I never appreciated that. After all, games are my job."