Malus Domestica

by Hunt, S. A.

  The trail had widened and was now quite visible, a thinness that meandered across the woods, occasionally meeting a side trail. Pine gave way to white-barked birch and naked dogwood, and little brooks zagged across their path, giving the kids something to jump over, stepping from stone to stone. Tiny silver fish darted through the brackish water.

  Wayne had lapsed into a daydream, staring at his feet, when Johnny Juan said, “Woah. That’s creepy as hell.”

  “Oh my God,” breathed Amanda.

  Deep in the trees was a clown’s face the approximate size and shape of a supermarket shopping cart.

  Rust-stains streaked down from its eyes and mouth as if it were bleeding from the inside. On closer inspection, he saw that it was a sort of cart, a roller-coaster car or part of a carousel. “Is this your surprise?” asked Amanda.

  “No,” said Pete, shaking his head and walking away. “That’s neat, but it’s not what I wanted to show you.”

  Pine needles and briars choked the passenger seat of the clown-face car. The mess was dark, tangled, ominous. Wayne wanted to get away from it, so he overtook Pete and jogged down the trail.

  “Wait up,” said Johnny.

  Wayne went down a short slope and found a break in the trees where the last dregs of sunlight slanted in from a clearing. He stepped over a half-buried train track and emerged into what might have been one of the coolest things he had ever seen.

  The stark umbrella-skeleton of a hulking Spider ride threw stripes of shadow over them, its suspended cars rusting quietly in the white sun. He had come out onto what appeared to be a go-kart track, a paved oval about ten feet wide and painted green. Grass and milkweed thrust up through cracks.

  “Ho-lee Moses.” The forest stood vigil over the ruins of an abandoned amusement park.

  A tree grew up through the middle of a small roller-coaster track, shadowing more rusted-out clown-cars and a broken scaffolding no taller than an adult man.

  His friends crunched up out of the woods and stood next to him.

  “Now that’s cool,” said Johnny.

  Amanda picked a careful path across the buckled road, stumbling over the asphalt and treading on the tall weeds. “I had no idea this was out here. You found this last summer?”

  Pete forged ahead, leading them through an aluminum garage at one end of the track. The ground was oily and nothing grew, which made for easy walking. “Yeah. I came out here to, ahh…look for Bigfoot. My mom said this is the old fairgrounds. It’s supposed to be one of those travelin amusement park things—you know, how they go from city to city, settin up in mall parking lots and stuff. But she said this one, the people set it up, and then they disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Wayne’s neck prickled. A go-kart was overturned against the wall, its axle bent, its guts pulled out. Parts lay strewn around it.

  Leading them through the heart of the overgrown carnival, Pete goosestepped and lurched over the dead weeds, trampling briars, sticks cracking under his shoes. “Yeah. She said it happened back in the 80s. Before any of us were born.”

  Gradually the brush gave away to open gravel and dirt. “Mom said the city tried to open it anyway, and it ran for like a year, but they couldn’t make any money on it and it was too expensive to clear it out. So they left it here.”

  A long arcade leaned over a bushy promenade, its game-booths frothing with hickory and blackberry bushes. HIT THE PINS! POP THE BALLOONS! THROW A DART! WIN A PRIZE!

  “Y’all don’t tell her we were out here. She said not to come back. It’s dangerous here.” Pete gazed up at a ten-foot board standing at the end of the concourse, with a round bell at the top. “…Is this what I think it is?”

  Wayne came closer. “Hey, yeah. It’s one of those strong-man tester things. Where you hit the thing with the hammer and the slider hits the bell.” He grinned up at his big friend. “Man, I bet you could knock the crap out of this thing.”

  “Let’s find the hammer,” said Amanda.

  Wandering in separate directions, the children searched through the dry grass and weeds. Johnny and Amanda went to root around under the Spider, while Pete went behind the north side of the arcade. Wayne kept going west, and found himself in an intersection between a funhouse and a caved-in concession stand. The funhouse was sooty black, heavily damaged by fire and overgrown with creepy ivy, so he didn’t bother going in.

  The marquee over the concession stand read FUNNEL CAKES, SNO-CONES, CANDY APPLES. The sign underneath the sales counter told him he was in WEAVER’S WONDERLAND, and that it was FUN FOR ALL AGES!

  That must be the person that built and abandoned this place, he thought, cupping his face against the cloudy windows.

  The concession stand was empty except for a chest freezer with the lid open. It was nasty with black gunk. I wonder what happened to him. Wayne couldn’t imagine anybody willingly walking away from owning their very own amusement park.

  When he looked away, his eyes were caught by a giant contraption down the right-hand street.

  Like a flying saucer crashed to Earth, a huge purple Gravitron rested in a bed of brush, its door wide open to reveal a dark mouth. Strips of dead bulbs marched in ribcage rows down its sides and down the frames supporting it from above. Wayne ventured up the bulkmetal ramp into the gawping machine. The curved black walls were lined with padded seats that, in the rundown darkness, could have been gurneys rather than seats meant for park patrons.

  A Formica coffee-table stood near the back of the Gravitron chamber, the woodgrain skin rubbed away at the corners. Several half-melted red and white candles stood in brass candelabras around a white bowl.

  Wayne crept closer. The bowl was full of some black substance…or perhaps it was the shadows playing a trick on him, he couldn’t tell; the cavernous dark of the machine’s interior made it hard to see.

  Picking up the bowl, he tilted it toward the light. Whatever it was, the black stuff in the bowl smelled foul: pennies, cigarettes, burnt hair.

  The inside of the bowl was black but dry—burned out, the contents had been cooked. He turned it upside-down to look at the bottom (MADE IN CHINA, maybe?) and saw the jagged rim of a pair of nostrils, and the two guileless eye-sockets of a human skull. The teeth had been sawed away under the nose.

  “Uhh!” he exclaimed, snatching his hands away. The skull hit the carpeted floor with a thump.

  He felt like he ought to scream. That seemed like the logical thing to do, to draw a great big breath, open his mouth, and belt out the loudest shriek he could muster, but his lungs were too small and he couldn’t get purchase on the air. As if the Gravitron’s door had closed and Martians were sucking out all the oxygen.

  “Uhh,” he said again, backing away.

  KSSS! A blast of air came out of the floor behind him and he leapt away in fright, shouting, almost falling over the coffee table.

  Finding his feet, Wayne saw that it wasn’t air—it was a snake, dear God it was a long fat snake, a firehose the olive-brown of poop, draped across the black carpet in swoopy cursive. Darker markings like Hershey’s Kisses ran down its smooth, flabby sides.

  The snake had reared up and now watched him warily, its fat jowls puffing inside its pink mouth, fangs bared. Damn, thought the boy, what do I do what do I do what do I do?

  “HELP!” he screamed, or that’s what he tried to do, but it came out a whispery squeak, flitting through the constricted tin whistle of his throat. Coiling protectively in the center of the Gravitron, the snake kept hissing at Wayne in that low nail-in-the-tire way, barely audible. It lay between him and the front door of the carnival ride, between the boy and any chance of escape.

  “Get out of here!” Wayne snatched up a candelabra and hurled it at the snake.

  The candle and candelabra hit the floor and broke into two pieces, whipping over the snake’s head. Fsssk! The reptile struck at it as it went by, punching out and withdrawing again.

  Wayne stumbled up on top of the creaking-cracking table and pressed himself against t
he Gravitron wall. The padded gurney-seat behind him was wet and stank of mold.

  “Go aw—” he began to scream, but the snake slithered after him, climbing up. Before he could get away, it jabbed in and bit him on the left leg just below his knee, fsst!, fangs stapling through his jeans into the soft meat of his calf.

  Startled and confused, Wayne softshoed backwards off the table in a tumble of candles, skidding, collapsing into the floor. His knees and shoulder reverberated against the wooden platform with a kettle-drum boom-boom.

  Coiling on the table, the snake peered up out of the bowl of its chubby chocolate-kisses body, puffy pink yawning, the tip of its tail wriggling as if it had rattles to shake.

  Wayne’s leg felt broken. Knife-blades from the sun swarmed and clashed under his skin, fighting each other in the flesh behind the bite, cutting him to ribbons from the inside. The pain was unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life—burning, pinching, stabbing, angry, it was hot coals and hornets and rusty nails all mixed together, scraping the bone clean with rending red teeth.

  He wrenched back the leg of his jeans expecting to find a white bone protruding from his brown skin, but there were only two puncture-wounds, beading raspberry blood.

  Cold numbness and needles took over his left foot, prickling his toes, his heel. His calf was beginning to swell.

  His tongue was too big for his mouth. His throat was closing up. He turned over on his back and goldfish-gawped at dry air, tears in his eyes. The boxing-glove pressing against the roof of his mouth tasted like batteries.

  “Hep!” he wheezed as loud as he could manage, his lips tingling, and fought for air. His shirt was ten sizes too small, constricting his lungs in belts of cotton. “Huuuk—huuuuuk—”

  BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, somebody came running up the ramp into the Gravitron. A barbarian giant plastered the far wall in shadow, filling the doorway with his body, and in his thick hands was a mallet with a striker-head as big as a mailbox.

  Pete lingered for about two seconds, taking in the scene, and then he charged across the Gravitron and brought the strength-test hammer down on the snake, smashing it so hard the table trampolined the reptile into the air. Someone—a girl?—screamed, but to Wayne it was the muffled keening of a kitten.

  The ceiling fell slowly away piece by piece, unmasking an abyss of shimmering red stars.

  Big old Pete, good old Pete, Petey-boy, the Incredible Pete, he demolished both table and snake, swearing at top volume, unleashing every swear and curse he knew, even as the blood-galaxy uncovered itself above his head. The huge hammer came down on the snake again and again, fump!…fump!…fump!

  The night sky glittered with rubies. Wayne couldn’t understand any of Pete’s shouting through the cotton in his ears, like an AM broadcast on a bad signal. His stomach churned, but he didn’t have the strength to turn over.

  Silky foam seethed out between Wayne’s lips and ran across his cheeks. A force lifted the boy up—Aliens, he thought, as he rose toward that malevolent universe, they’re taking me away into their purple spaceship, they’re gonna cut me up and do tests on me—and then he was gone.

  12

  Sent at 9:36pm

  B1GR3D: hey

  Received at 9:42pm

  pizzam4n_1982: what u want stepchild

  B1GR3D: nice pictures. U look good

  pizzam4n_1982: thanks

  pizzam4n_1982: you don’t look so bad yourself, ol man. I am diggin that red hair. Always wanted me a wild irish rose

  B1GR3D: old man? haha

  B1GR3D: what you doin

  pizzam4n_1982: gettin off work, u?

  B1GR3D: bored

  B1GR3D: i want sum of that goodlookin body

  pizzam4n_1982: boy you wouldnt know what to do with it

  B1GR3D: I bet I can figure it out. Why dont u swing by on the way home an let me hit it

  pizzam4n_1982: let u hit it? Lol

  pizzam4n_1982: oh ho ho you aint even gonna buy me dinner first. I see how it is

  B1GR3D: if you want dinner I got plenty of food here. hell I’ll cook u a steak if you want. damn good steak. Bake potato, whole 9 yards

  pizzam4n_1982: you know the way to a mans heart, don’t you?

  B1GR3D: I sure do.

  ❂

  Black Velvet grumbled into the parking lot of Riverview Terrace Apartments, Joel Ellis behind the wheel, his cellphone clutched in one hand. The iPhone’s screen illuminated his face with B1GR3D’s address. This redneck better be a good cook, he thought, peering through the windshield at the apartment numbers, looking for Apt 427. I ain’t fitna put myself in some stranger-danger for no cheap-ass meat.

  Building Four was in the back of the complex, a brownstone bulwark against the dark woodline. The Monte Carlo eased into a slot, washing 424’s windows with bright yellow headlight, and the engine cut off. Joel got out and scanned the row of doorways.

  Eyes peered through the blinds in 427’s window.

  There you is. He slipped his phone into his pocket, locked his car, and sauntered up the sidewalk. 427’s door opened and a man stepped out, considerably taller than he expected, with a slender neck and a jawline that could cut glass.

  “Hey there,” said the man. He was dressed conservatively, in a flannel button-up with the sleeves rolled, and well-fit jeans.

  “Sup, stepchild. You must be Big Red.”

  B1GR3D smiled and gave a bashful chuckle. “That I am.”

  This was always the hardest part, the awkward introductory phase, where they were still feeling out each other’s body language and weighing their own regrets and needs, trying to get comfortable and break the ice or find a reason to leave and forget it ever happened.

  “Well, come on in.”

  “Thank-yuh.” Joel stepped inside.

  The tiny apartment was meticulously clean. Hanging on the walls were impressionistic paintings of wildlife posing dramatically in the forest—deer, foxes, mice, wolves. Large prints, from the look of it, no brushstrokes. Joel touched one of them. Thin cardboard. A ten-dollar Walmart poster, still shrinkwrapped. Other than a black sofa, there was only a desk with a bulky gray laptop on it and a flatscreen TV on a squat, altar-like entertainment center.

  Joel sat on the sofa as Red went into the kitchen, and it crackled under his body. A slipcover encased the futon in clear protective plastic. The aluminum shafts that served as its legs stood on wooden medallions, like coasters.

  To protect the carpet, he supposed.

  “This remind me of my grandmama,” he said, brushing his fingertips over it. He could see himself in the TV screen as clearly as if it were a mirror. “Every piece of furniture in her house was covered in plastic. The couch, the mattresses, there was even a floormat in the living room on top of the carpet.”

  “I like a clean, healthy house,” said Red’s voice. “I grew up with filthy people, neatness suits me.”

  Machinery whirred to life in another room. As Red returned with two glasses, a robot hockey-puck came humming out of a dark hallway and vacuumed the carpet in front of the couch. “Roomba,” said Joel, as Red handed him a drink. His new friend had the craggy hands of a workin’ man. “I always wanted one of those.”

  “It’s handy.”

  Joel sniffed the water-glass and took an exploratory sip. Whiskey, and it went down smoother than soda. Hardly any burn at all, with a vague maple undertone, so faint he wondered if the honey-color was playing tricks on his tongue. “Damn, that’s nice,” he said, holding the glass up so he could see through it.

  “I got the steaks on out back.” Red walked away. Joel swirled the whiskey, washed it all down his throat, and followed him through the kitchen, pouring himself another couple of fingers on the way.

  ‘Out back’ was a concrete patio about the size of a walk-in closet, with two plastic lawn chairs and a huge grill. A lone lantern-style porch light brightened the scene, and a damp phantom of October breathed across the wet grass.

  At the edge of Red’s tiny yard was a wildern
ess of pines, quiet and still and impenetrable in its darkness.

  The grill was obviously where most of Red’s money went—a top-of-the-line charcoal-fired beast with wood-slat leaf tables on both sides. He opened the top and smoke billowed out, two levels of grills scissoring open like the trays in a tackle box.

  On the bottom grill two porterhouse steaks, charred black and Satanic-red, sizzled angrily over a bed of glowing coals. Nestled between them were a pair of potatoes wrapped in tin foil.

  Joel settled into one of the lawn chairs while Red used a pair of tongs to place spears of asparagus around the steaks, and four medallions of buttered Italian bread on the upper shelf. The aroma streaming out of the cooker was immense, an enveloping sauna of rich salt. Joel wanted to take off his shirt and bathe in the savory steam, absorb it like a sponge.

  “That is outstanding.”

  Red smiled over his shoulder and flipped the steaks. Kssss. “I used to be a cook, on a boat.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yep. I used to live in Maine. Near the ocean. My father worked on fishin boats all my life and when I graduated high school, he wanted me to follow in his footsteps. But I wasn’t into that. Dangerous work. Boring. You lose fingers. Fall overboard. Break your legs.”

  He tapped his head with the hinge of the tongs. “Not enough of a challenge up here. But, it was what my father wanted, and there wasn’t any convincing him otherwise. After I looked and looked for work at home, I finally had to admit to myself that I was going to have to take up the family business and catch fish for a living.”

  Joel sipped his whiskey, listening raptly—or, at least, the best approximation he could manage.

  “So, I hooked up with this crew goin out that season and went out to sea.” Red flipped the bread, piece by piece. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t cut out for it after all. Those guys really shit on me. But, here’s the funny part, I turned out to be a pretty good cook. So they stashed me in the galley and put me to work makin dinner. That was actually where I shined.”