Seven Deadly Pleasures

by Michael Aronovitz

  And from there it all really crumbled.

  Clothes were strewn around the bed area like a ring of drowning children, all reaching for the lifeboat that kept afloat their captain's best interests. Past that was the clutter of obsolete playthings that crawled for the wall shadows. Tonka trucks were jackknifed and upended across sections of warped Brio train tracks. Two Hot Wheels talking road lanterns sat by a toss of baseball cards, key chains, C batteries, and Mega Bloks Lego pieces. Pogo foot rests, streamers, extended forks, and other bicycle parts lay stranded by the TV, and a heap of greasy chains curled themselves into the remains of a ripped T-shirt in the corner by the closet. Stuffed animals of the past were abandoned by the heating vents. Pocket change, crayons, CDs, spitball straws, and other littery things spotted the rest of the floor, and at the room's farthest edge there sat an unfinished rolltop desk that had a bunch of used-up Wendy's Frosty cups stuck across the top in a line.

  Josephine entered the space and walked from one side to the other as if in a dream. By the far window she finally paused and reached toward Denny's only room plant, a large tub-shrub left from the days of his mother. It sat on a rickety bar stool and had a sweat sock stuck in the branches. She plucked it out, let it dangle, and then dropped it.

  "What is all this?" she said. Denny shrugged.

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing?" Her eyes had gone wide and her voice started to rise. "Nothing? It seems like this room has been left on its own to rot, Denny! This is worse than I thought it would be. It's not just ghetto in here, it's funky and nasty like a live nightmare. There are things on your floor from your baby years. How do you live like this?"

  "It's OK."

  "OK? Are you out of your mind?" She looked up at the ceiling, blinked, and looked back. "What does your father think of all this? The refrigerator was suspicious and the basement was a horror show, so set me straight one thing at a time. Explain his angle. What does he say about the disaster in here?"

  It was Denny's turn to blink.

  "Nothing."

  "What?"

  Suddenly, Denny wanted to scream, "Did I stutter?" but thought the better of it.

  "He doesn't say anything," he said. "He tells me to keep my stuff to myself and out of the hallway, that's all. He doesn't care. It's cool. It's OK."

  "No, it's not OK!"

  Eyes wild, she paused there for just a moment, then marched across the room and slammed the Slither-Shifter picture down on the flat part of the rolltop desk. The sound made Denny jump and the picture now stared out face front catching glare. Josephine stepped back in close and spoke in a tense whisper.

  "It's not cool, Denny. It's not cool, it's not OK, and it's a case of neglect. The question is what do we do about it."

  Denny stared. She was using adult words that stood for bad things, and he usually ignored all that crap. Finally he gave up, frowned, and looked down at the floor.

  "Right," she said. She put her hands on Denny's face and raised it so he would look at her. She smelled nice, like soap. Her hands were smooth and cool and her eyes had gone soft.

  "I have to make a phone call, Denny. I have to call my father. It's going to be all right in the end, I promise."

  "But why—"

  "Shhh."

  She put her shoosh finger against Denny's lips and he spoke through it.

  "What are you going to say? What are you gonna say about me and my Dad?" Tears were springing in his eyes and Josephine backed away.

  "I'm going to use my cell phone. I'll be right outside on the stoop."

  "We've got a phone downstairs. What's so wrong with our phone?"

  She shook her head and made for the door.

  "This is private, Denny. You stay here. Do not move, understand?"

  Josephine's quick turn on her heel cut off his chance to answer. Her footsteps then marched away down the hall and went quiet as they hit the carpeted stairs. Denny raced for the window, sickened now with the feeling that he'd somehow gotten the remains of his family in real trouble. Down on the step Josephine soon appeared, cell phone to ear. At first she seemed to be waiting. Then she paced, talked, and made big arm motions.

  But what had Denny done to earn all this? What was so bad that Josephine Thompson, a teenager who was almost full grown, felt the need to call her Daddy on a cell phone outside? His breath made a hot oval on the glass, and suddenly she looked up from the stoop. Their eyes met. And it was then that Denny could have sworn he heard a scraping behind him. Just one little scrape.

  He spun around and looked to the rolltop desk in the corner of his room. He gulped. Blinked his eyes twice.

  The Slither-Shifter picture had changed since Josephine created it and brought it into the light of this room. For the lines now looked darker. The eyes seemed brighter, and in the bottom left corner about an inch off the frame there was now a small crack in the glass.

  6.

  It's only a drawing.

  Denny crept toward the picture on the rolltop desk, his head cocked to one side and eyes squinted down with suspicion.

  It's only a drawing.

  His heart was pounding and he was ashamed of it.

  It's only a drawing.

  Of course the sketch now appeared sharper and darker, for anything would look sharper and darker under unshaded bulbs like those in the overhead ceiling fan.

  But what about the scrape from behind?

  Good question, and Denny fought with it for a moment. Cripes, about thirty seconds had passed since "the noise," and it was already hard to imagine what it had actually sounded like in the first place.

  Did it happen at all?

  Another good question. In fact, as time trickled by the whole business seemed sort of silly. Still, Denny was almost positive that Josephine had smacked the frame dead-nuts center, and now it was parked a shade right. With his toe, he nudged aside a ribboned coil of weather-spotted caution tape he'd recently found in the street and stepped in close to the glass. The crack itself stemmed from the picture's bottom corner and split to a fork at its peak. The new flaw was tiny. A sliver. In the background behind it, Denny's shadowy reflection wavered in the glass atop the dark lines of the Slither-Shifter. Suddenly he was aware of the sound of his own breathing and he noticed his neck hair was up. Dang, it felt like those bug-eyes were watching him! They almost tickled. Denny raised up his glance and by instinct he also sucked in his breath.

  So did the picture. Denny jerked back and almost stumbled over his heels. A sharp breath or something just like it had vacuumed into the frame a split second after Denny's own whooshed back through his lips. Was that thing actually alive under the glass and echoing the patterns of Denny's breathing for camouflage? He took a step forward and the glare on the eyes followed. He took a huge breath and held it fast.

  Was there overlap just then?

  He could not tell. It was too close to be sure.

  Denny made a scrambling rush for the bed, climbed up, and pawed at his pillow. One of the limp, weathered corners was poking a feather and he grabbed it out, jumped back to the floor, and stamped across the room as fast as he could. Close to the picture again, Denny breathed deep twice and then held one in with all that he had. His hand rose and he let the feather fall on the desk just in front of the crack in the glass. His lungs were starting to beg for air but he had to be sure. He backed all the way to the window, focused, and let out his breath as hard as he could.

  The picture did not blow back even a bit, for the feather had not moved an inch.

  Denny paused, stared, shook his head slowly, and then almost laughed out loud at himself. Whew! Breathing pictures? Spirits alive under glass? How old was he, four? He leaned back, turned, and rested his forehead against the cold window. The little grin that had surfaced on his face faded. Down below, Josephine was sitting on the step and comfortably deep into her conversation. He bumped his head lightly against the glass pane. "At least that picture ain't really alive," he thought, and when he rapped his head once more for good m
easure, a noise came again. A noise from the desk area. Loud this time and unmistakably real.

  "Wwwwhhhoooo!"

  Denny whirled and almost gagged. The feather was dancing on the air, cutting half-moon sweeps toward the floor before the rolltop desk. He eyes went wider. Behind the glass there was now a third claw and the faint outline of a new tail fin growing in the background.

  Denny burst into a run for the door, and the picture scraped sideways along the rolltop's surface as if tied to him by an invisible wire. He threw on the brakes mid-stride, one sneaker still in the air and the picture halted as well. Now the corner of the frame was way out over the desk's edge, teasing, promising that another fraction of an inch would make it spill over.

  Denny struggled for balance, brought down his foot, and then tried retreating a step. Slowly.

  The picture did not slide back one inch and its ice black eyes seemed to sneer,

  "I don't play Monkey-See-Monkey-Do when you wimp out going backwards. And it's still your move, scumbucket."

  Denny pounded a mad break for the door. The picture then launched off the desk, cartwheeled across the room on a slant, flattened out, and crashed to the floor in a loud burst of shattering glass.

  Odd-shaped pieces mushroomed up and showered the floor before Denny's feet. The fierce buzz of a thousand insects then filled the air and he was hurled back by a blast of cold wind that erupted up from the gutted picture frame. It smelled like wood-rot and its force rattled the window, flickered the lights, and slammed shut the door with a clap.

  Denny was lifted off his feet, his hands flew overhead, and while coming down in a half-turn he noted that his body was headed toward the old wooden stool by the window. He tried to land it running. No dice, the spin threw his balance and dropped him. Sliding now, still turning, Denny Sanborn bowled knees first into the stool and reached out to grab hold of something to cushion his spill. His arms closed around the big potted plant in a bear hug. The weight of the heavy clay urn spun him, lifted him from the knees, whipped him around a last time, and returned him to the floor on his bum. He skidded and then crashed backward into the wall, all breath knocked out in a whoosh. Black stars swirled and danced in his eyes. He blinked at them and noticed something tickling under his chin. It felt hairy, rough, and, of all things, alive.

  Denny looked down at the plant between his palms and his mouth fell open. The branches were moving. The ball-jointed stalks were bending and reaching like spider legs, and what had been small, white flowers at the tip of each axil were now black claws that snipped open and shut.

  A scream rose up in Denny's throat.

  Deep between the branch-legs, the pot soil had grown a ribbed, uneven skin and its small, gray pebbles were now spotted lids. They flew open and ten black eyes smiled upward.

  Denny broke the stare and shoved the thing away as hard as he could. It somersaulted end to end across the floor and screamed an angry, high-pitched whine with its multiple legs thrashing up at the air. When the tumble-flip brought it down flat to hard wood, the huge flower pot smashed in two beneath the beast, spraying fire-hardened clay fragments and shards toward the door. Immediately, these razor-edged pieces turned grayish-white and began to curl. Maggots now, they wriggled on their backs, sprouted rootlike, uneven legs, and struggled to get upright.

  The original Slither-Shifter was stuck under the two main halves of the busted urn, with the crack between the clay pieces sitting directly over its knotted spine. Something moved slightly and then the curved hunks of pottery began to flutter and lift. Now they were wings, webbed, sectioned, and flapping to a milky blur.

  The huge insect rose off the floor and let down its branch-legs in the dangling, bent-in position for flying. It buzzed over to the far wall, landed, and scampered for a high corner.

  Every muscle in Denny's body was frozen. The small, white, squirmy things had grown up fast, most now thumb-sized replicas of their master on the wall and swarming inside the torn T-shirt on the floor. In addition, a few of the biggest were crawling up the busted twist of bicycle chain and practicing jumps off it. They got more sure-footed each round.

  Denny glanced back to the wall. The beast was bunched up on its haunches in order to expose a small opening in its bloated underside, and from beneath those folds there was a sudden spitting of white. Denny ducked and heard a suction of contact above his head. He chanced up a glimpse. A long thread from the monster was now stuck to the wall, taut, and melted in at its contact point.

  Denny went to his knees and rolled, while in his ears there was the rapid clicking of many claws crawling the wall for better positioning. When he came up, the Slither-Shifter was dead on, a few feet above the bed's headboard, and the babies, now hand-sized, had formed blockades by the window and door. Some remained crouched there while the ones most matured jumped for the walls to crawl up toward the room's highest creases.

  Denny reached out his right hand and groped at the floor for a weapon. Already the growing larvae, now the size of Nerf footballs, had turned themselves upside-down from the ceiling and were trindling down from above, crooked legs curled up and skittering along sticky ropes. They looked like paratroopers or Navy Seals repelling a wall. Denny groped around harder. They had gone military, for the window crew was webbing checkerboard sections of rope to the right while the door crew had cut off escape to the left.

  He was trapped in a death triangle with the big one waiting to wrap him.

  Denny's hand closed on a handle of sorts, and right away he recognized the grip of that ping pong paddle he'd found in the trash outside of the 18th Street Y. He pushed up with his left, found his knees, eyeballed a "swinger" about a foot from his head and reared back.

  "Die!" he shouted while whipping around the paddle with all of his strength.

  The contact was sure and the crack from the initial swing was not nearly as sweet as the splat when the thing hit the wall. For a moment Denny grinned. The mini-Shifter burst into about seven pieces, spraying gray guts and leaving a blotch of black dripping slime. Denny's smile faded. The gory pieces immediately took form, turned grayish-white, curled at the edges, and started to sprout rootlike legs.

  Denny had created seven new monsters. He looked up and saw that the webs on either side of him were nearly complete, stuck fast to the rolltop, the far wall, and the bed at both ends. And some of the beasts, now as long as an arm, had come off the walls to nestle into different things on the floor. There was one with its bottom side stuck in a pair of Nike sweat shorts and another squirming under an old beanbag chair. They were laying eggs. Denny was done for.

  He looked across the room and saw that the main monster was bunching up for the kill. Paddle in hand, Denny shot to his feet and sprang to the bed for a last-ditch, Kamikaze run at the master. To the side, a larger of the replicas turned up on its bottom at the last possible moment and sent out a shooter. Mid-jump, Denny felt the paddle get knocked from his hand and his balance got screwed in the process. He landed the bed on all fours, absorbed the slight bounce, and looked up, fully expecting the big Slither-Shifter to be twirling a snare right into his face.

  It was doing no twirling; in fact, it was dead. Nothing but an uprooted plant again, the mess of dirt, roots, and branches fell off the wall, glanced the mattress, and met the floor with a thunk.

  All around now came similar sounds, as wads of dirt came off the walls and plopped around the bed area. What had been wriggling vermin now tumbled down as small bits and chunks of old pottery. Denny peered over the edge of the mattress to see for sure that the big one was dead. The wad lay still in a muddy tangle of branches and dirt, but Denny suddenly noticed that something had grown warm and wet beneath his palms and knees.

  He looked down between his thumbs. Now his hands were pressed to some sort of gross-looking body part that floated in a pool of black phlegm.

  It's a tongue! I touched the bed with both hands!

  Denny dove from the bed and rolled off his elbows toward the closet. His shoulder bashed
into an ancient Phonics Bus and the old speaker wheezed "A is A and Ahh," while spinning and flipping to its side. His back just caught the edge of a mini-firetruck's cherry picker, and through the sharp pain Denny tried to recall in a flash every video or computer game he'd ever set hands on.

  Nothing came to mind, at least nothing like this.

  He crashed to a stop by the closet and turned. The entire bed frame had gone leathery. There were layers to what looked like gums and each ridged level dripped spit. The short bed legs were now knobby stingers and the only thing missing were teeth.

  Solved soon enough.

  The "bed" split itself width-wise at center and snapped up like a large mousetrap, the top half coming down with a crash. The headboard splintered and what remained of the jagged spindles formed quickly to fangs set fast in a pair of mammoth jaws.

  It didn't wait long to make its first move. The huge thing came forward like a giant set of chattering joke teeth with razors, stilettos, and poison spikes stuck in the gums. Hot black venom sprayed off its jowls.

  Denny rolled to the side, found his knees, and looked around for an out.

  Touch something small!

  His eyes fell on the PlayStation controller sitting on the floor where the bed had just been. He cut back, sprang in, slid on one knee, and grabbed it two-handed in passing. Score! From the corner of his eye he could see the bed snap back to its original form and bang down to the floor at an odd angle.

  Yes!

  But the thing in Denny's hands was already squirming, and he did not want to waste time saying hello. He shot for the door and at the same time, threw the new Shifter as far behind him as possible.

  He heard it land.

  He heard it hiss.

  He didn't quite make it to the door.

  A barbed coil of sorts whipped around his ankle, brought him to the floor, and dragged him backward on the elbows. He winced, turned back a look, and saw that his PlayStation controller now towered above him, balanced on its wire like a large-headed cobra or thinned-down, limbless black mantis. The left and right button boards had sets of cruel eyes and the palm rests were horns made of bone. The wire tail that had torn itself loose from the console now whipped from the bottom of his right ankle, circled both Denny's shins, and wrapped all the way up to his knees.