Seven Deadly Pleasures

by Michael Aronovitz

  It was binding him cocoon style.

  He tried to dig his fingers under the tail but the thorny scales spiked up at his touch, puncturing both thumbs and the inner side of his left index finger. He was bleeding now. As if from a dream he began screaming for help, shouting, and thrashing around on the floor.

  "Denny?" someone said. "Denny, what's going on?"

  It was Josephine standing in the doorway, phone still in hand and a look of amazement spread across her face.

  In response, smack in the middle of his current struggle on the floor, Denny felt a bizarre embarrassment strike up inside. He was never one to ask favors. He was never one to beg for help. And regardless of all this, he was still Denny Sanborn the hero, wasn't he? He was still Denny the clown, the one who took the blame for things other kids did, and always made out best on his own.

  Wasn't he?

  Or did he have it wrong all this time?

  "I need you," he said despite himself.

  And she came forward. Josephine Thompson came forward in order to help Denny Sanborn, and it was the biggest mistake she ever made in her life.

  7.

  Josephine made her way into the room and broken glass crunched beneath her shoes. In response, the Slither-Shifter lifted up and cracked down its tail circus-whip style, twirling Denny a number of times in mid-air and sending him spinning toward her in sudden release.

  She instinctively hurdled up, but on the way past underneath, Denny's elbow caught on the toe of her shoe. She tumbled forward, swore out loud, and landed in the glass palms first. The swear words became shrieks of pain. She made it to her knees and raised bloodied hands as if making prayer.

  No one upstairs was listening.

  The living PlayStation controller head swiveled, focused, juked back, and sliced in hard through the air.

  It bashed Josephine square in the face. Her head snapped back with the force and when she turned back toward Denny, her eyes were huge. She pressed her hands to her nose and blood squirted between her fingers. She brought her hands down to inspect them and then went back to the wound twice in a touch and look, touch and look. Denny could do nothing but stare at her, hunting for the tough young woman he had met earlier that night on the stoop.

  She was gone. And the one left behind in her place was no more than a baby-girl now. A small child lost at the mall. The brave one, the one talented beyond measure and a bit too old for her years was long gone.

  As if to prove this, the Shifter twirled its lower end in circles above Josephine's head. In a flash the barbed cord wrapped her throat like a lasso and the beast yanked her up to her feet. It pulled her toward the hall door. She kicked out her heels, clawed at the noose, and her eyes showed nothing but fluttering white.

  Denny got to his knees.

  By the time he gained a standing position Josephine's flailing feet had disappeared around the corner and into the hallway.

  Denny hunched for the run, for the heroic chase scene, but then he just stopped where he was. What possible good could he do for her out there? Was he strong enough to loosen the coils around her throat when he couldn't even budge them an inch off his leg? Who was he fooling?

  Shift it again!

  But to what? The closest things were the bed, some trash-trinkets, and the hard floor itself; three options that looked pretty bad when you realized that the bed was sure death, a tiny Shifter made of, say, a glass sliver would be small enough to get in an ear for a brain invasion, and a touch to the floor held the horrid possibility of a creep to the walls that went to the ceiling that supported the attic which led to the roof. A house-sized monster by connection-infection! No way. That would put them both inside the nasty thing's gut with nowhere to run, and the chance to run was about all they had left.

  Josephine's kicking sounds had faded down the hallway, and Denny realized he was sweating, panting, and doing nothing while the precious seconds slipped through his fingers. He had to do something fast, and the idea of doing something "fast" linked suddenly with the thought that the chance to run was really their last.

  Denny had to stop it from moving. He had to trap it somehow and lock it down long enough to save Josephine. He looked up at the ceiling fan and thought about what Dad had said years ago when a much younger Denny was scared it would fall on him.

  "Don't be stupid, kid. It's fastened down with toggle bolts. That sucker ain't comin' down, not now and not ever."

  Good enough.

  Denny jumped no hands to the bed and just before he made his first upward leap, the connection-infection theory again raced through his mind. Would touching the overhead fan-light spread the beast to the ceiling? Where did the disease begin and when did it stop?

  He had no choice but to find out the hard way. If she wasn't cooked already, Josephine was damned close to getting there. In fact, right about the time Denny made his first bounding spring there came the sound of a body falling down the hall stairs.

  Denny stretched with all that he had and just managed to brush a light bulb with both middle fingers. Instantly, the room was transformed to blackness and Denny stumbled off the bed to get away from the rank garbage wind that whirred from above.

  His eyes refocused and on his way out the door he chanced a brief look over his shoulder.

  The blades of the ceiling fan were spinning like mad. The four black bulbs, now eyes, arced back and forth in their pivoting hoods, casting thick black beams all around like searchlights on prison walls. The blades spun faster and the new demon began beating those propeller wings up and down with a fury. There was a squeal of steel anchors tearing through ceiling board and a spray of plaster dust that snowflaked the bed.

  Denny ran for it.

  He ran through the shattered glass to the hallway and slammed shut the door on his way out. He tried to call out Josephine's name but was drowned out by some ripping sounds that came from the room just behind.

  It didn't take long for that thing to cut loose from the ceiling. Geez!

  There was a muffled, rapid-fire chopping noise.

  It plowed into the bed with its propellers!

  There was a crash that was too close for comfort.

  It's hacking through the door!

  Denny reached the corner and peered down the stairs. He was moaning a bit and he froze where he was. On the downstairs landing jutting out just past the handrail was a twisted foot. Unmoving. Obviously, the rest of her was spilled into the living room. He was too late.

  Another splintery bang from behind made Denny jump, and he turned just in time to see the edge of a wing-blade poke out, yank back, rev in a high pitched scream, and punch back through like a hatchet head.

  Get down there, if not for her, then just to get out of the house!

  Denny tried, but his feet disobeyed. He did not want to see Josephine dead. He hated to admit it but he was scared of the body, scared to approach it, scared to step over it. No, he did not hold his breath while passing by graveyards. He never avoided cracks in the sidewalk nor cared one hoot if he'd stepped beneath a ladder, but there was something about this dead girl that creeped him out something fierce.

  "Real live dead girl," he thought and laughed out loud at the way it kind of made sense. Then he laughed at the way his laugh made him sound like a mental patient from Tales from the Crypt. Then he laughed at the way his laugh made him laugh . . .

  Suddenly the door down the hall exploded off its hinges in a crashing of steel, wing, and wood pieces. The Slither-Shifter, a lunatic helicopter now, blew out sideways, straightened, and came flying in low and hard.

  Denny broke down the stairs, taking two at a time. It was not going to be enough. The blades whipping behind him were a hair away and he was only three quarters of the way down. He made a leap for it.

  He jumped, stretched, and reached.

  Both of Denny's hands closed around the large handrail knob and his momentum swung him over Josephine, into the living room. The hunk of metal that had been the Slither-Shifter bumped loud
somersaults the rest of the way down the stairs, bending metal and breaking bulbs. It passed the kitchen archway with a roll and a bang, finally bashing the cellar door and leaving a dent in the wood nearly two inches deep.

  Denny landed on his knees and forearms and slid backwards. He upended the coffee table and then came to a stop. He looked back at the stairs.

  The handrail knob had become a huge eye, the banister behind it had turned into a long spine, and the spindles beneath soon became slime-dripping ribs. One by one they ripped up from the stairs as the Shifter fought to get mobile.

  Denny elbowed over to Josephine. Her eyes were shut as if she was sleeping but Denny knew not to believe that one. Her head had been wrapped three quarters of the way around her shoulders. She was gone forever.

  And Denny almost cried when the Shifter's frantic shadows danced across the lifeless form of his babysitter. Still, the cold shame in his heart twisted his emotions a different way. He just stared for a moment, face ashen, mouth open as his mind pointed the finger of blame.

  You could have done better, Denny. You could have saved her.

  And it was nothing but the horrid truth so help him God, for he had laughed like a hyena at the worst possible moment up there, hadn't he? Hell, he had stumbled down the stairs with a freakin' smile on his face! And the ceiling fan? Why, he should have touched the bed again, hell, it was closer. It would have turned the monster back before Josephine took her fall down the stairs, giving her a fighting chance on the landing instead of a broken neck by the banister!

  Yeah, and the thing would have gobbled you whole for your trouble.

  Denny grit down his teeth. Sure, he could always be the hero at school and take the blame for things other kids did. But when it came to the real deal here in the house he'd delayed in his room like a coward. When it came right down to it, he'd wanted to live.

  Mom didn't get that choice, did she?

  Denny looked up at the ceiling, mouth open and neck strained, all in a buried scream that refused to come out. He was no hero, Mom was never coming back, he did not save Josephine, and he had not solved the puzzle. He had only succeeded in running for his life and that race was coming to a close.

  That thing was still going to get him.

  Suddenly, he lowered his face, took in a deep breath, and did something not too many would ever have expected from the likes of Denny Sanborn. He shouted. He shouted straight into the face of a dead girl.

  "How do I win? Why did you have to end the story with a riddle? If I can't kill it, then how do I stop it from shifting? Look at it, huh? How do I make that thing like me?"

  It was almost free of the stairway now, a huge and wriggling centipede with clawed spikes for feet. It had but two spindles to go.

  Denny's lips formed blubber-bubbles as the weakness of surrender crept toward his heart. Then he stopped cold. Swallowed. The monster had one spindle to go.

  How do you stop it from shifting?

  You have to make it like you.

  Once more, Denny ran those two sentences through his head just to be sure he'd thought it out right. Then he added a third sentence. A sentence that answered the riddle.

  How do you stop it from shifting?

  You have to make it like you.

  Well, Josephine likes me.

  At least he hoped that she had. He was, after all, betting his life on it. Denny reached out both palms and cradled her cold cheeks between them. Immediately, the handrail turned back to wood, creaked, yawned out to the side, and hung there.

  Josephine's eyes fluttered open. They were pupil-less, bulbed up, and black as midnight. Her broken nose healed and became a slate of uneven scales. Tiny antennae poked from her nostrils and flicked in small, inward arcs. She pushed up and brought her head around in a series of stiff, jerky twitches.

  Denny shrank back in horror and at the same time realized that both of his hands had just been to the floor. But there was no tongue beneath now, no sticky legs, just the floor as it always had been.

  "I've recaged it," he said from his new position a few feet from the live thing. "Oh, man."

  "That's right," Josephine whispered. "Your anger always needed an interpreter."

  "What?"

  She cleared her throat and laughed at full volume.

  "That's right. You've managed to recage the Slither-Shifter."

  Denny cringed, for her voice was an awful, inhuman whine that droned with insectile vibration. If he was better off than five minutes before, the difference was too little to measure. There were no hiding holes deep enough for this stuff and nowhere to run anymore. He had invited it in. Now it was his.

  "Oh, don't worry, Denny," she said as if reading his thoughts. "I like you, heck, I liked you from the moment I met you."

  She stretched over, made a purring, buzz noise, and reached out a claw to pat his cheek gently.

  "But I have one big surprise for your Daddy when he gets home from work. One big surprise just for him."

  Then she smiled.

  She smiled a mouthful of fangs.

  The Exterminator

  Evan Shaw was lanky. He had a lean face and boyish sandy hair that was always hanging just enough in his eyes so he could give that haughty jerk of the head to clear it off if the moment suited him. He was a sweater-and-jeans guy, a casual guy, the kind of twenty-seven-year-old that had joked his way through high school, breezed through college with a degree in communications he had no use for, and put himself on track to become a thirty-something man's man, king of the golf outing, lord of the watering hole. He was the phone-tanker at a power tool distributor in West Philly, and it bored the hell out of him. He rented in the 'burbs and cooked a mean paella. He often painted on Saturdays. Oils on canvas. He never showed that stuff to his co-workers, but he and Eddie Boylan, the shipping assistant, sometimes held bachelor parties for no reason.

  He had a '96 tan Toyota Corolla passed down to him by his mother, and he always had his stuff tossed around in there because it was a shit-heap. His chest pad, knee protectors, and face mask from the over twenty-one summer hardball league were all still strewn across the back seat along with a dirty squeegee, a black umbrella, an unread copy of How Football Explains America by Sal Paolantonio, and a AAA map that he had never taken out of the plastic. Up front, there was a red canvas Staples bag on the floor of the passenger seat crammed with three empty half-gallon jugs made of brown glass. He could still return them to the Iron Hill Brewery if he wanted a discount on some very expensive and very potent Belgian Triple. There were a bunch of old cash receipts and straw wrappers in the change-holder between the seats along with some pens, a clay man figure in a reclining position that his little brother Robert had given him for his twenty-fourth birthday, and a bunch of pennies that looked as if they had been on the bathroom floor of every truck stop in America.

  It was the day before Halloween and Evan was driving sort of fast. He'd originally intended to stop at the gas station on Haverford Avenue and do a quick vac job to the old rustbucket, but Horowitz had pinned him at the loading dock with questions about how to properly tag some repairs. It held him up for thirty-five minutes. Evan prided himself on the fact that he got along with everyone: diesels, wise-asses, and even the sensitive intellectual types (usually electricians and specialty carpenters) who came along once in a while in the trades. Still, his sincerity with Horowitz had come off a bit condescending. He would have to work on that.

  He hawked up and spit out through the open window while curving past the bowling alley. Now he was going to miss the first hour of Comcast Daily News Live. The T.L.A. Video was way up Lancaster Avenue almost to Villanova University, and by the time he returned the DVD and doubled back to his small apartment in Wynnewood, Michael Barkan would be long done talking about the Phillies and their miracle run. They'd be into that "Quick-Six" bullshit where the reporter looked right into the camera to answer some "funny" little question, as if that wasn't the creepiest thing in the universe, and then they'd digress to the
dregs, like interviews with retired basketball coaches from St. Joseph's or LaSalle, or some such dumb shit.

  Evan flipped on the radio and hit the four programming buttons in succession. Super Tramp, too queer, Three Doors Down, too predictable, Papa Roach with that annoying way he curled his "R" sounds, and a Journey song that made him want to scratch his eyes out with a fork. Nothing. He had installed a CD player last June, yet anything but Puddle of Mud's "Famous" or Metallica's black album came through the speakers with too much bass no matter what combination you threw on the dials, and he had killed both records with overplay weeks ago. Someday, he would buy a long American car with soft seats, a smooth sound system, and shitty gas mileage. He did have plans.

  His nose was bleeding. He recognized it immediately; heavier and quicker than snot, and he could feel a runner drop over his upper lip like a stone. He sniffed in hard, tilted back his head, and felt along the seat for a tissue or something. He'd had a Kleenex box with the cartoon rat from that Disney movie on it, but to the best of his memory it had migrated to the trunk for some reason, there along with an old hubcap, a cheap red and white blanket, a mini-stepladder with rubber tread on the stair grids, and a million plastic water bottles he'd forgotten to recycle.

  He strained his eyes down at the road and looked for a place to pull over. He had just passed the D.M.I. Home Supply, and the parking lot for the commuter train was on the far side of the street. The trees were a red and orange blur and the asphalt a slick black mirror with leaves stuck in the wet gutters like paste. Evan almost knocked "Vantage Point" on the floor, and he caught it just in time. He was coordinated for a big, lanky guy. In fact, Jimmy Savoy in accounts payable told him that he was a ringer for the dude who had done those "There's only one October" commercials this year. That guy caught a baseball coming out of the television.