Bad Things

by Tamara Thorne

  Green fluid still pulsed from the broken vine in Big Jack’s neck, and green slime dripped from its mutilated torso, but still it held Robin. The vines growing from its mouth began to twine around his face.

  Five chimes. Big Jack extended its hand again. Come with me or he dies dies dies.

  Six. He couldn’t let Robin die for him. Swallowing, Ricky reached for Big Jack’s hand.

  “NO!” Robin screamed as the creature’s hand closed painfully on Ricky’s wrist.

  Seven. Big Jack paused, glanced at Robin, then stretched out its other arm, holding the boy far away from its body. Suddenly it let go, but Robin was already clinging to the arm, hanging on as Jack tried to shake him off. Face smeared with green, eyes fierce, he screamed, “No!” and refused to fall.

  Ricky twisted in Big Jack’s grasp, and suddenly the grip became so tight that he felt as if his bones were being crushed. He cried out, nearly fainting with the pain.

  Eight. Robin swung across Big Jack’s body and grabbed the arm it held Ricky with. With all his might, he began to tear at Jack’s forearm, using every muscle in his hands and arms, using his teeth to bite, doing everything to make the monster let go of his brother. The monster tore at him, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  Nine. The wooden wrist began to crack. Robin twisted the wood fiercely, and it broke. He ripped a vine with his teeth and the hand came off, still attached to Ricky’s arm.

  Ricky staggered back against the tree trunk, breathing heavily, holding his wrist.

  “You can’t have him!” Robin screamed.

  Ten.

  Big Jack pulled its mangled arm back and again shoved Robin’s head into the mass of oozing mashed foliage behind the ribs.

  Eleven.

  “Robin!” Ricky cried.

  Robin’s mine, little Ricky, icky little Ricky. He can’t see like you can, but he’s mine now. Better watch out!

  Twelve. Midnight, November 1.

  The leaves on the vines growing from Big Jack’s mouth withered in an instant, turning brown and flying away on the breeze before the final bell finished echoing. Big Jack laughed again and let go of the oak, Robin trapped in its arms.

  “No!” Ricky cried as they fell.

  In the first minute of November first, Ricky stood in the branches of the old oak tree, barely aware of the rain beating monotonously against his face. He clung to the trunk and stared in shock at Big Jack’s body on the ground twenty feet below. He craned his neck, trying to see Robin, but the boy was lost in the rain, buried in the dark visceral vines of Big Jack’s remains.

  The scene was lit by moonlight and the rainbow of Malibu lights that lined the paths crisscrossing the immense forest of a front yard, and as Ricky watched, a dozen little greenjacks gathered around the ruins of Big Jack. An instant later, a dozen more glimmering forms poured from the lifeless body of their king. A strong wind suddenly rose and the body began to break apart, the arms and hands and legs becoming nothing more than harmless twigs and branches. The roots and leafy vines crackled brown as they dried up and rode away on the wind.

  Big Jack was gone for another year, and only the unmoving form of Ricky’s twin lay within the circle of little jacks.

  “Robin.” Ricky moaned the name, and the greenjacks looked up at him briefly, then turned their attention back to Robin. They started to move around him. Ricky realized that they were fighting over his brother’s body.

  He realized that Robin was unconscious, not dead, just like Thomas in Grandfather’s stories. That meant a greenjack could force Robin out and take his body—just as Big Jack had promised. Quickly Ricky started to climb down the tree. He had to get his twin into the house before they took him.

  But the handholds ran out after a few feet, and it was too far to jump. “Robin,” he whispered. The jacks barely glanced at him as he crawled back up the tree and into his window.

  Once inside, he glanced briefly down and saw that the circle of jacks was moving wildly, violently, melding, coming apart, melding again. Quickly he took the back stairs past Carmen’s room and down and around through the kitchen and dining room, not caring about the darkness, caring only about his brother.

  Don’t let them get you, Robin, don’t let them get you!

  He crept across the living room, avoiding the spots where the floorboards would creak. The drapes were drawn, and for once, he wished they weren’t. Don’t let them get you, don’t let them, don’t let them.

  Quietly he reached up and pulled the wrought-iron bolt on the arched front door, then grabbed the handle and pressed the thumb latch. It clicked softly open. He waited a moment, then, slowly, silently, he pulled the heavy planked door open. His heart thumped as he got ready to run out and down the steps to the oak, to rescue Robin and carry him inside to safety.

  “Hi, baby brother.”

  “Robin!”

  Bathed in the yellow glow of the porch light, Robin waited on the welcome mat, resting on his hands, peering up at him. He was soaking wet, and a small trickle of blood oozed from a cut hidden in his hair. Otherwise he looked fine. Below, at the bottom of the wide steps, the amorphous shifting shapes of the greenjacks cavorted and tumbled in the grass. I’m not afraid of them anymore. The realization astounded him even more than Robin’s amazing recovery. I’m not afraid. Suddenly he knew what it must feel like to be a grown-up. Smiling, he turned his attention back to his twin.

  “Robin, you’re okay! I was afraid you were—”

  “Dead?”

  “Knocked out. I thought you were knocked out!”

  “I was.”

  His twin’s crooked smile made the hairs on the back of Ricky’s neck stand on end. Grandfather’s familiar words flitted through his mind.

  . . . his father held a sword in his hand, ready to run the body through if his son had become a changeling.

  “Whatcha thinkin’?”

  “Nothing. Are you okay?”

  “Okeydokey, icky Ricky.”

  Stunned, he stared at his brother. Ricky knew, beyond all doubt, that he had never, ever told anyone about the name the jacks called him: It was too humiliating. His bladder let go. It didn’t matter. “What?” he whispered.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Did you hit your head?” he asked timidly, wanting to believe that he’d imagined his brother’s rhyming reply.

  “Just a little. Just enough.” He crossed the threshold, his movements lacking their usual grace, and stared around the room as if it were something new. “Shut the door, Picky Ricky. Let’s go to bed.”

  In shock, Ricky loitered a moment in the open doorway watching the greenjacks as they capered in the rain. One, dimmer than the others, did not jump or dance, but stood motionless under the tree, near the place where Robin had fallen. A chill raced up Ricky’s spine.

  Robin? he thought hard at the figure.

  And he thought he heard his name, called softly, but it was lost in the leaves that chattered in the breeze.

  “What’s going on here?”

  Ricky whirled at his father’s voice and saw his parents in their robes and slippers, standing at the bottom of the living room stairs. His dad’s arms were crossed, but his mother stepped forward quickly.

  “You’re wet. You’re both wet!”

  Immediately Robin began to cry. “I fell,” he sobbed.

  “Fell?” Mom scooped him up, mindless of his wet clothes and the leaves and dirt sticking to him. “From where? Are you all right, honey?”

  He threw his arms around her neck and clung, his face buried against her shoulder, sobbing and heaving as he never had before. It was a show. Ricky cringed, wondering what would come next.

  “I fell out of the tree,” he wailed. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to—”

  “Rick?” His father loomed over him. “What were you boys doing?” He looked him up and down, mouth set in a grim line.

  “I—I—Robin went out the window and—” He silenced, knowing he shouldn’t tell the truth because they wouldn’t believe
him.

  “It’s all my fault,” Robin bawled.

  Amazed, Ricky stared at him.

  “I was playing a trickertreat on Ricky.” His voice hitched dramatically over a series of whimpers. “I . . . I wanted to scare him. I lost my balance, and Ricky tried to save me.”

  “There, there . . .” His mother turned slightly, and Ricky could see Robin’s face over her shoulder.

  His eyes were black as night, and his expression was gleeful and scary at the same time. The little-boy voice that issued from his mouth didn’t match the way he looked. “Oh, Ricky, I’ll always remember how you tried to save me.” His hand crept into his mother’s hair, bringing a lock of it to his face. He smelled it, smiling. Then, to Ricky’s horror, he stuck his tongue out and licked it. The smile broadened into a jack-o’-lantern grin, and all the while, Mom kept patting his back, unaware. Dad, not noticing, crossed to the open door and closed it.

  “Ricky?” His mother said. “That was very brave of you to try to help your brother, especially when he played a bad trick on you.”

  “I’ll pay you back, I promise,” Robin said. Slowly he extended his tongue and licked the satiny robe his mother wore.

  “It’s okay,” Ricky said softly. “He bumped his head,” he added. “It’s bleeding.”

  Oh!” Mom pulled Robin away from her, as Ricky hoped she would, and examined his head. “Frank, do you think we should take him to the hospital?” She glanced at Ricky. “Go on up and get dry and go to bed, honey. Everything will be all right.”

  He left his parents discussing Robin’s bumped head as he trudged upstairs. At the top, he found Carmen staring down at the scene below. Silently she walked with him to his bedroom, then waited outside the door until he came out in fresh pajamas.

  “Are you all right?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Come on, then.” She led him to her room around the corner, and they sat together on the little sofa bed she kept for when one of her sisters came to visit. “Okay, Ricky,” she told him. “Tell me. It will be our secret.”

  He did as she asked, leaving nothing out because he knew she wouldn’t just tell him he was crazy.

  She asked, “So you think your brother’s changed, Ricky?”

  Confronted so bluntly, he had to stop and think. That was exactly what he thought. And he had proof because of the name: Icky Ricky.

  He swallowed his pride and told her about the name.

  “Maybe you said it in your sleep, Ricky.” She regarded him solemnly. “Do you think you might have?”

  More than anything in the world, he wanted to believe that what Carmen suggested was true. “Maybe,” he said, knowing he hadn’t. Suddenly he realized he’d have to go back to his room soon and see his brother. That frightened him so much that his stomach hurt.

  Carmen leaned over and kissed his cheek soundly. “It’s late. Let’s talk about it more tomorrow. You want to sleep here tonight, Ricky?” she asked, as if she knew what he was thinking.

  He nodded gratefully.

  5

  November 1, 1973

  Legs legs legs legs legs. Balanced on his hands, he padded carefully down the staircase, his abbreviated body held up high so that it didn’t thump much against the steps. Legs legs legs legs legs. Icky Ricky was cowering in Carmen’s room, maybe sleeping, maybe not, and the parents were back in their room with the door closed.

  Legs legs legs legs legs. Despite the blood in his hair, he’d convinced them he was fine, so the mother had dried him and tucked him into bed. He liked that a lot, the feel of the rough towel on his skin, the feel of her hands, the smell of her hair, her skin, the minty scent of her breath.

  He snickered, remembering how upset Ricky had been when he saw him lick Mom’s hair. Poor Ricky, icky Ricky, crazy, crazy, sicky Ricky.

  The parents talked and talked before falling asleep, and impatiently he’d waited until they’d been silent for a long time before leaving the bedroom. It wasn’t much fun being alone, but he amused himself by looking through icky Ricky’s dresser and toy chest until he knew it was safe to leave.

  It was just as well he’d been left alone for a while, he decided. Because of the head bump, the memories buried in his brain had been a little fuzzy at first—the memories of the house, the parents, Carmen, and especially icky Ricky, but now they were flowing into place and he knew he’d be fine, no matter who he ran into.

  Legs legs legs legs legs. He hated Ricky for having the legs, but this body had some advantages. Though Robin’s balance and grace were still a little messed up, they were improving rapidly and six steps from the ground floor, he let loose a whispery little laugh and flipped his body up above his head and finished his descent in handstand position. Delighted with his progress, he turned and quickly raced back up the stairs, then, still in a handstand, dashed down the hall, past his room and around the corner.

  Legs legs legs legs legs. He paused a moment, waiting until he discerned the soft sawing snore coming from Carmen’s room, then, arms pumping, he dashed along the long hallway that led to the back stairs. His descent was perfect this time, and he made no sounds but for the soft pad-padding of his hands against the lovely grass-colored carpet and the rhythmic murmur of his breath and his muted giggles. At last he entered the kitchen and caught the perfume of ripening pears, the tang of orange peel, and the warm smell of the bread baked earlier that day.

  He crossed to the refrigerator and, balanced on one hand, used the other to open the door. He pushed it wide so that the dim light from the interior could illuminate as much of the room as possible, then he began investigating the Kelvinator’s contents.

  “Mmmm-mmmm-mmmm-mmmm-mmmm, what’s this, what’s that?” Gleefully he opened a yellow Tupperwear container, and sniffed at the gelatinous brown lumps within. “Beef, beef, beefy beef,” he whispered, sticking his finger in the cold gravy. Delicately he sucked the finger clean. “Mmmm.” Lifting the bowl to his face, he dipped his tongue into the gravy and lapped up a morsel of beef. He chewed slowly, savoring the meaty flavor, memorizing the rich odor of flesh laced with onions, garlic, and bay, and the feel of its greasy, grainy texture. Before replacing the lid, he used his tongue to smooth the surface of the coagulated sauce.

  Licking his lips, he replaced the container precisely where he’d found it before eagerly studying other items on the lowest shelf.

  “Butter, butter, mmmm-mmmm butter!” He removed the cover, then ran the flat of his tongue over the yellow surface, careful not to leave any marks. He loved butter, the slick way it felt in his mouth, so rich, so . . . There was something more, but he didn’t know what to call it.

  So many tastes and smells and textures to examine and sample—Said Simple Simon to the pieman, let me taste your wares, hairs, cares, dares. The rhyme came to him, making him feel warm and tingly inside. He had a dab of catsup, a lick of sour cream, then an egg, consumed whole, crunchy shell and all. A drink of milk threatened to overflow his mouth and belly, so he spat the rest back into the carton.

  Legs legs legs legs legs. Logy and full, Robin ascended the kitchen staircase, tired, moving slowly, the bump on his head making him feel achy and irritated, not caring much if his body thumped the steps now and then. Even so, he paused in the bathroom to open the hamper and examine the dirty laundry. He withdrew a shirt and sniffed it carefully, memorizing the scent of the father’s sweat, then exchanged it for a pair of feminine underwear. He studied item after item, with nose, mouth, and eyes, never tiring until he had examined every last piece of clothing. Finally he replaced everything in the hamper and returned to his bedroom. He climbed onto Ricky’s empty bed, removed his pajama top and underpants, then rolled around on the sheets.

  When he tired of the activity, he dressed and moved to Robin’s bed by the window. With effort, he unlocked it and opened it as wide as it would go and perched on the ledge.

  The rain had stopped and there was no w
ind. The silence choked his ears until he began grinding his teeth just to hear something. Soon he began humming to himself, wishing icky Ricky were here so he could listen to him breathe, wishing he were here so that he could have a little fun.

  In the darkness he longed for a whole body, to have legs to run with and senses that could see the greenjacks and hear their songs. Most of all, he longed for revenge against Ricky, who had everything he so desired. For the new Robin Piper, the loneliness was overwhelming.

  6

  July 22, 1974

  Tonight the refrigerator held clusters of purple Concord grapes to stuff into his mouth, and he did, cramming it so full that he could barely close his jaws over them. Next, oh joy, a covered dish of olives, black finger food, salty and iron-tasting, reminding him of blood. The olives made him crave meat, and he had to reach as high as he could to grab the white butcher paper containing a mountain of hamburger. He opened it and nibbled the raw meat delicately, savoring each taste. Then, before rewrapping it up so carefully that no one would suspect it had been touched, he ran his smoothing tongue over the rest of the mound, leaving his saliva on what his family would eat.

  He never grew tired of touching other people’s things, of leaving something of himself upon them, so they would unknowingly consume his bodily secretions, or wear them against their bodies. It was one of many pleasures that helped him deal with his anger at Ricky for the legs and eyes denied him.

  Eating was another, but now his stomach was full, so he shut the refrigerator and padded to the kitchen door, swung onto the stool next to it, and silently undid the lock and chain, ready for another sort of indulgence.

  A moment later, he was in the backyard, hidden in the darkness of a new moon. He breathed in the night air, feeling the summer darkness surround him, the cool wind like water on his face. A hint of eucalyptus lay under the soft sweetness of the citrus trees, the gardenias and jasmine, and beneath that, a cold-water smell and the bubbling of a waterfall. He glanced at the half acre of orange and lemon trees, at the path leading toward the cottage where Grandfather Piper had lived. It had been locked and dark for nearly two years, but now that Carmen and Hector were getting married, it was being cleaned out and fixed up so that they could live in it. The parents had hired Hector full time to act as gardener and handyman.