Grimm Memorials

by R. Patrick Gates

  "We can go get help," Mark whispered. "We won't make it if we try to wake them up, or take them with us "" Mark selected one of the four keys on the ring and reached carefully between the bars with it. Doing it backwards, he inserted the key into the lock. It didn't fit. He pulled the key out and, working with his arms outstretched between the bars, selected another one. It fit, but didn't turn. He tried the third. The ring slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor.

  "Oh no!" Jackie sobbed.

  Mark dropped to his knees, both arms still through the bars, and began to search frantically. Agonizing minutes later, with Jackie whimpering in his ear all the time, Mark found the keys again. "Got 'em!"

  Jackie, keyed up beyond his wildest limits, began to sob with joy.

  Mark put his arm around him in the darkness. "Hey! It's okay, kid. We're going to get out of here, but I need you to be brave, okay? You got to stay brave or you'll never get out"

  Jackie sniffled his assent and choked back his tears.

  Mark tried the last two keys. Neither of them fit. "What the heck?" he whispered to himself.

  "What's wrong?" Jackie asked, the dread creeping back into this voice.

  "None of the keys fit," Mark explained. "They worked for her," he added, bafflied.

  "I bet they're magic keys," Jackie despaired, his voice full of defeat. "You can't use the witch's magic keys"

  "That's stupid," Mark said, but suppressed a chill. He tried all the keys again, then tried them upside down. The last one slid in this time. "Shhh!" he cautioned Jackie and turned the key. The lock tumbled, and the door opened.

  "This is it," Mark whispered urgently. "Come on," he said to Jackie, and swung the door all the way open. Mark stepped out of the cage.

  Jackie groped in the darkness for Mark's hand and couldn't find it. "Wait!" he whispered loudly. He was too scared to follow and too scared to be left behind.

  The lights came on, filling the room with blinding light. Jackie put his arm up against the harsh light and backed away quickly from the cage door. The witch stood in the doorway. Behind her, Jennifer followed like a puppy.

  Mark was just outside the cage door. He tried to get back in the cage, but he bumped into the open door as he backed up and it swung closed with an ominous sound. He lost his balance and stumbled back against the bars.

  The witch, her arms reaching, her clawed hands seeking, charged across the room and grabbed for Mark's throat. He ducked under her arms and tried to run to the door, but she caught the back of his hair and yanked him back to her.

  "Jackie! Help!" Mark screamed, his voice warbling with terror, as the witch got her hands on him.

  Jackie didn't move. He was paralyzed.

  The witch's hand closed round Mark's throat. He squirmed and kicked wildly in an effort to get away. One of his wild punches got lucky and caught the witch in the stomach. The air went out of her in a gasp. She staggered back. Mark tried to lunge away, and she nearly lost him, but managed to grab him by the hair again. She pulled him around hard and whipped him into the bars of the cage. Mark hit the bars face first, his nose crunching against them and spewing blood over his mouth and down his chin. He collapsed senseless at the witch's feet.

  Jackie trembled as the witch fixed him with a baleful glare. She was clutching at her stomach, gasping for breath, but she made him cringe under her stare.

  "You boys have been naughty," the witch wheezed. With each word from her mouth, she changed a little in Jackie's eyes. By the time she reached the word "naughty," she had become the she-troll: massive head; pointed ears; mottled skin; long neck; flat, leathery breasts; yellow eyes and fangs as long as brand-new no. 2 lead pencils. The hideous creature grinned.

  "Pay the troll." Jackie remembered its voice only too well. "Treat me to dinner," it groaned hungrily.

  Several of the boys behind Jackie let out frightened cries, aware of the witch's presence even in their sleep, and the troll cackled shrilly. "Come, my kittens," it crowed. "It's time. Time. Hickory, dickory, dock!" It cackled again and in the blink of an eye turned back into the witch.

  Still clutching her stomach, she shuffled over to the cage. "You're going to wish you'd drunk your milk, little kitten," she said, leering at Jackie.

  Mercifully, Jackie swooned with fright.

  CHAPTER 37

  Cry, baby, cry ...

  Eleanor tried to straighten up, but she couldn't. The pain wouldn't let her. With the help of the morphine, she'd been doing so well. She'd woken rested from her sleep, the Machine strengthened, and was ready to start the rituals that had to culminate in the final sacrifice at exactly midnight.

  The little brat who now lay bleeding at her feet had nearly ruined everything. His punch to her stomach had reawakened her old friend Pain River, which was threatening to break through the morphine dam containing it and become a raging torrent again, this time carrying her away forever. It kept her bent, like a knee to her back. Her wind was returning, and the soreness in her stomach from his kick was fading, but the pain in her chest, neck, and arms had become so bad again that she couldn't straighten up completely.

  She scuttled over to Mark's body and kicked him viciously in the back. It was all his fault. Just for causing so much trouble, he would be the first sacrifice of the fifth ritual. She bent over cautiously, not wanting to aggravate the pain in her chest any further, and grabbed Mark by the hair. "Girl!" she bellowed at Jennifer.

  "Yes, Gram?" Jennifer replied, running eagerly to Eleanor's side.

  "Bring that contraption over here," she instructed, pointing at the casket gurney by the embalming table. Jennifer did as she was told while Eleanor drew the last packet of morphine from her pocket and tore at it with her teeth. Her hands shook with pain as she removed the syringe cap and eased the needle into her arm.

  Relief was quicker and stronger this time, and didn't make her feel as tired as before. Within minutes, she was on her feet, cranking the gurney down to pick up Mark's prone body. "Take his legs and help me slide him on," she instructed Jennifer, who happily complied. Together they picked Mark up, placed him on the gurney. Eleanor buckled the straps and lifted the boy waist high. She pushed the gurney to the embalming table, released him from the straps and rolled the boy onto it.

  With the same gray tape she'd used on Margaret and Betty Boone, Eleanor taped Mark's hands together. She pulled off his sneakers and socks and did the same with his ankles. Producing a large pair of shears from the tray, she cut Mark's pants away from his body until he lay naked. She strapped him to the table.

  Eleanor turned her attention to Diane, her little mother, the most important one. She went to the reclining chair, Jennifer following like a shadow, and checked Diane's pulse and eyes. She seemed satisfied with her condition and began to cut the maternity slacks and sweatshirt from the pregnant woman's body.

  "Replace and light all the candles," Eleanor told Jennifer as she worked the scissors. She pointed to the shelf where a box of black candles and kitchen matches sat. "We're going to have a Halloween party."

  "Goody," Jennifer exclaimed happily. She went eagerly about her chore, replacing each candle carefully, cleaning off the old wax when it got in the way, and lighting them.

  While her helper replaced the more than one hundred candles in the room, Eleanor stirred ajar of baby's blood and painted the ritual symbols on Diane's swollen vein-webbed belly.

  Jackie swallowed. His dry throat closed up on him like a fist. He choked and coughed. He came out of his stupor, became aware of his surroundings. Disjointedly in jagged, fearful flashes, he remembered where he was and how he'd got there. Each memory assaulted him, jolting him a little bit more awake.

  Groggily, he saw Jennifer replacing candles. She was working her way slowly toward the cage, replenishing the holders strewn on shelves and the floor stands surrounding the circle where his mother was.

  "Jen," Jackie mumbled. He shook his head and rubbed his face with his hands. His head hurt and everything inside him felt like it was caug
ht in a whirlpool-his mind, his stomach, his heart. He was reeling in shock from the horror of the situation.

  "Jen!" He cried again, louder. He glanced warily over at the witch and stifled a shriek: The witch was doing something to his mother. He flushed hotly with embarrassment as he realized that his mother was naked. The witch was bending over her, painting her naked belly with funny symbols, like the ones on his dead stepfather's dark blue face and mottled chest.

  Jackie watched the witch and realized she wasn't hurting his mother. He could see his mother's chest-he flinched at the memory of suckling those breasts and seeing them turn into the witch's-rising and falling with her breathing. She was all right, for the time being at least.

  Where's Mark? Jackie wondered. The witch blocked his view of the embalming table. Quietly, he got to all fours and crawled to the edge of the cage. He put his face between the bars and called to his sister again as loud as he dared. "Jennifer!"

  Jennifer looked at him without pausing from her work, and smiled. "Hi, Jackie," she said pleasantly, as if nothing in the world were wrong.

  Jackie stared incredulously at her. She was smiling a goofy smile that was like a slap in the face of his terror. "What's wrong with you?" he asked her, his voice whining. "Help me get out of here," he pleaded.

  Jennifer smiled and shook her head as if Jackie had just said something very foolish. She replaced another candle, struck a match, and held it to the wick.

  "Jennifer, please!" Jackie whispered, his voice unsteady, on the verge of tears. "Please, Jen, help me. Help me get out of here ""

  Jennifer stopped a moment and gave her little brother a stern look. "Shame on you, Jackie. We're Grammy's guests. We can't leave now. That would be rude" She turned back to the candles, dismissing Jackie's absurd idea. She left Jackie sobbing against the bars, arms outstretched, pleading soundlessly, and went to the candles set up on the stands on the edge of the circle and star on the floor around their mother.

  The witch finished painting his mother's bulging belly, went to a shelf on the wall, took down a pocket watch on a chain, and hung it on the wooden podium. She went to the metal table behind her and Jackie saw Mark.

  "No!" he choked out, tears springing to his eyes. He turned his face away, unable to look at Mark's battered face and naked body. "Jennifer. Help us. Please!" Jackie pleaded too loudly.

  The witch paused from painting Mark's chest in the same way she'd painted Jackie's mother's and looked at him. Give it up, boy! the witch spoke inside his head.

  Jackie recoiled at the touch of her voice, scampering to the back of the cage and huddling there. The hopelessness of the situation was pushing him closer to the edge of insanity. He peeked out at the rest of the unconscious boys in the cage and felt a deep, compelling urge to join them, to also be unconscious to the horror unfolding around him.

  He wanted to scream in the worst way, just to let it out. A scream had been building inside him for a long time, welling up and threatening to boil over and out of him in a neverending howl of fear and anguish. In a last-ditch attempt to stifle the scream that would surely bring the witch, Jackie stuffed the knuckles of his right hand into his mouth and bit them.

  "That's a good boy," the witch croaked from the head of the table. She was undressing. "No screaming," she said with what was almost a gentle smile.

  Jackie watched her in terrified fascination while Mark woke and began moaning and sobbing. "Mark," Jackie cried, and flinched at the sharp look the witch gave him.

  "Jackie," Mark said thickly, blood spitting from his mouth, "help me "" His nose and cheekbones were swollen and purple with bruises. A nasty gash across the bridge of his nose sent blood into his eyes and down his cheeks. His lips were split open, the top one mashed brutally. He choked a moment, then spit out two of his teeth.

  "God helps those who help themselves," the witch croaked and burst into shrieking laughter that set Jackie's teeth on edge.

  "No," Mark groaned in pain as she leaned over him.

  The witch laughed louder. She was naked now, her clothes piled at her feet. She ran one hand caressingly over Mark's bruised face. Her thumb pressed down on the gash across his broken nose and he screamed until he blacked out.

  Giggling with delight, the witch picked up a long knife.

  Eleanor curled the knife handle into her palm and took a deep breath. The pain was still with her, hovering above and around her, but the morphine was doing its job keeping it dammed up. Now that she was actually getting down to the business of the final rituals, she felt a surge of renewed strength in both herself and the Machine. She felt like nothing could stop her now.

  Don't bet on it! Edmund's voice came out of the air behind her.

  Shut up, Edmund. You're only in my mind. You're dead and you can't stop me. No one can, Eleanor resolved strongly. Edmund laughed, but the sound was faint and faded away in the face of her confidence and determination. Eleanor smiled. Edmund's ghost was beaten. She knew now, irrevocably, that it had been her own guilt all along that had resurrected him.

  She went around the table to the wooden podium and placed the knife on the open page of the book. Her confident smirk turned to a cruel sneer as the brat on the table woke screaming again. "Enough dawdling," she murmured. Time was getting short.

  She ran the point of the knife in her hand down the page of the book like a pointer ticking off the four Rituals of Preparation she had already completed. She looked over at the crumpled corpse of Steve Nailer. He was beginning to smell very bad. He had almost ruined everything. If Eleanor hadn't woke up when she did, it would have been the end of her. Her eyes drifted from Steve, over the twelve boys in the cage and the naked screaming brat on the table next to her.

  It was time to start the fifth ritual.

  Jackie watched in tears as the witch made Mark scream. He tried to block out the sound with his hands but couldn't. He tried humming a loud monotone to block it out, but it regressed into a mumbled no no no over and over again.

  The witch turned away from Mark and went to the wooden stand with the big book on it and bent over it as if reading from it. Jackie was about to try and get Jennifer's attention again when the witch turned around, looking at him and the other boys in the cage. Her awful stare drove him to huddle behind the slumped bodies of the twins and fat Jason Grakopolous. As he trembled there, hoping against hope that the witch would decide to just leave him alone, he peeked over Jason's arm.

  The witch was bending over and and removing from a cabinet against the wall a large fire-blackened stoneware bowl with the same symbols that she had painted on the others, including herself, carved into it. She placed the bowl on the floor between his mother's outstretched legs and went back to the cabinet.

  In horrified disbelief, Jackie watched as the witch dropped a pulpy, raw, human heart and his stepfather's bloody private parts into the bowl. She followed those with what looked like a wrinkled brown sheet cut in the rough shape of a body, with arms and legs.

  Jackie whimpered and trembled uncontrollably. There was no end to this horror, it just went on and on. The witch knelt in front of the bowl, as if praying over it. She rose slowly and went to the huge metal door set in the wall to the right of the cage. In front of the door was a low conveying table, the top of which was a series of black, hard rubber rollers. To the left of the door was an instrument panel with dials, a small spoked wheel, and a large lever.

  Jackie didn't know what the metal door was to, but he was sure it was nothing good. When the witch pulled the lever and turned the wheel, making the door open to reveal a space about as large as a pantry, Jackie discovered he was right. The witch turned a dial and long jets of blue flame roared from dual rows of four pipes running up both inside walls. A wave of heat rolled through the room, making the candle flames dance madly.

  It's an oven! Jackie thought.

  The better to cook you with, my dear the witch answered in his head. Jackie put his hands to his ears and crawled away to the far side of the cage, where he curle
d up against the bars. But, try as he might, he couldn't keep from watching the witch.

  A big part of Jackie's mind just wanted to retreat, recede into numbing shock, but another part wanted to stay conscious, wanted to know what the witch was doing. If he didn't stay awake and sane, he wouldn't see an opportunity to escape if and when it showed itself. If he let shock take him, he was dead meat.

  The witch turned the dial again and the flames dwindled to candle points. She picked up the stoneware bowl and placed it on the roller-topped conveyer and pushed it into the oven. Spinning the small wheel, and releasing the lever on the instrument panel, she closed the oven door. She turned the dial controlling the flames up for a few minutes, then lowered it and opened the oven door again.

  With a pair of large metal tongs that she took from a narrow space in the wall below the oven door, the witch removed the bowl from the oven and replaced it on the floor between Jackie's mother's outstretched legs. The bowl had a fresh layer of black soot on it and its middle was red hot with a dull glow. A crackling, sizzling noise came from inside it, accompanied by a foul smoke. The room filled with the rancid smell of fat burning.

  "No-o-o," Mark wailed, thrashing his head wildly back and forth, making the pain in his head explode. The old woman was approaching him, knife held up like an icon over her head. She crossed to the table where he lay and stood over him, eyes closed, mouth mumbling, knife slashing invisible symbols in the air over his body.

  "Mommy!" Mark screamed as loud as the pain in his face would allow. The old woman's wrinkled, grotesque body so close was more than he could bear. Her flabby, malformed breasts flopped against her skin with every swing of the knife. The sour, pungent smell of her body sweat trickling from under her arms and breasts washed over him, filling him with nausea.

  The knife dipped lower. The old woman's mumbling chant began to rise. "Mommy, please save me! Mommy, Mommy, Mommy," Mark pleaded. All rational thought had deserted him. He was reduced to an incoherent babble, reverting to an infantile pleading for his mommy.