Scowler

by Daniel Kraus

  Ry became aware that his own mouth hung open. He closed it, if only to shut out the hot brown reek that he recognized but could not quite place. Oh, yes, he could: It was the bilious stench of the newly dehorned steers that marched through his nightmares, the mud underfoot boggy with their terrified piss and shit and blood, the air soured by the slather of wrath and the sniff of panic.

  Scowler’s jaw snapped at a speck of dress, his first solid food. He shivered, his tumors jiggling, and continued to advance. The exposed metal pipe scritched across the floorboards, shaking an orgasmic quiver all the way into the cysts of Scowler’s face. When his pipe leg crossed the metal base of the dummy, there was a celebration of sparks. Ry found himself wishing that one would land on Scowler and ignite.

  “Hkk-law.”

  How blissfully Ry had forgotten the ecstatic, asphyxiated gobble.

  “Hkk-law, law-hkk!”

  Scowler tottered closer and Ry drew up his feet so as to delay physical contact a moment longer. The head swept this way, then that, bringing to light the most obvious thing: Scowler, with those shallow depressions for eyes, was blind. A blast of hope galvanized Ry. It wasn’t too late! He could tiptoe away, fold up the ladder, close the attic door, nail it shut. But Scowler navigated well enough with his teeth. He gnawed at the dummy’s belly, pulling up tiny cotton hernias. He swung left, burying his teeth into a stack of magazines, uncovering typeface innards. He corrected his course and toothed the floor, flecks of pure white chipping the stained hardwood.

  “Hkk-law, hk’a, tk’a, tk-tk!”

  If Ry did not speak, Scowler might chew himself right up Ry’s leg.

  “Hello,” Ry blurted.

  Scowler went still and silent.

  The head circulated like a satellite dish until the hollow eyes locked onto the voice’s origin. There came a sound like the plinking of the highest piano keys and Ry recognized it immediately. It was a hundred sharp teeth adjusting all at once—it was a grin. Scowler had been waiting so long for this conversation.

  “Kt—kl, va, va, tk-tk, hr’wo-gep-gep-gep. Sk-t! Crrrr, sk, sk, lu—zu, zu. Ak! Kr’uh-kr-zni—uf. Hk! Hk! Zw, i, lok-a-tik-tik. Hwa’fwa. D’str, pk-a-pk—quish! Dak! Ssa, sstra, p-p-p-p-p-pluk! Dak! H’wosh. Ka, sa, ma—hm. A-a. Tk! Sk-t! La, raaa. Tk!”

  “Please, I …”

  “Hzch-st fet p’n, d-d-d. Meb, bem, eb, em—tk! Wz? Fa. Zep—zep, rep, de’cat-at-at-at-at! Chwok h’h’hd, swa beh ar-mar, ssa. Tk, hud. Nya-da-hoo, hoo. Yer n’ning seh—seh-nin! Nin! Seh-nin! Dsss. G’ve, hm, uh sus ta-ta-ta, bol! Wah; hss’foo. Fo, foo. Lkht! Wkht! Hweee, scri-bli-gli zaa-wiz, rt-tk! Lk-tk! Thro ciy twi, twi, twi. Ja bett czzzt, zip—ra, tis-d-d-d-d-d! Ri. Ri-hd! Spk-tk-rk-it-tk-rk-a, cr’g’hrrrud, hrrrud i’dk. Blee-sg pik-hs, es-soph-fk-fk, gus—bem, gus. K! Cwhd! St-t! Ty, wk! N’v, n’v, m-m-m-tk-a-tk-a. Wh? Scow! Tk? Scow! Ra, ra, sla-a-sby-tip, Ja bett nya, nya. Vek! Vek! Qk, sek! Hzch-st, seh’nin, tk, hud, hss’foo! N’fva! Hkk, law. Mn, mn, mn. Tk!”

  The cacophony felt to Ry like pins into skin. His mouth fell open to let out a cry of pain, and that’s when the cloud of sound and the stench of steer swirled up inside him, and when his senses finally cleared and he parted his lips to tell himself that he was all right, out came the wrong kinds of noises—Scowler noises.

  Scowler tapped his metal leg against the floor, a call for attention.

  For the first time in hours—no, days; no, years—Ry did not feel torn between competing personalities or destinies. He was a complete being with only one thing on his mind: Tk. Lovely, lovely tk, tk, tk. When he looked at Scowler he saw someone just like himself: ugly, inconsequential, but possessed with a raw power that just might surprise everyone. Ry began to laugh, even though it felt like sobbing.

  23 HRS., 6 MINS. AFTER IMPACT

  Currents of energy screwed individual hairs deeper into his lip so that it felt as if his mustache were crawling back up inside of him. It was an exciting sensation. How could he have let anyone, much less that gutless kid, handle this glorious gem? Marvin squatted over it, basking in the creamy texture of the steam and how it packed like wet sand into his sinuses. It was a nice, heavy feeling. A feeling of gravity. Of consequence.

  Scalper Jim lorded over the crater.

  “I know, Jim, I know,” Marvin said. “Just let me have this moment.”

  There was a breeze. He heard it rustle through Black Glade, then slalom about his bald head in a way that made him feel incomparably awake. Dawn’s light was weak but when he spread his arms he could tell that his wingspan was wide enough to encircle the rock. Its porous surface likely meant that it was more awkward than heavy. And even if it was heavy, he was strong—there hadn’t been much else to do in the pen besides pump iron. In truth, there was another, better reason he had never felt such strength: Scalper Jim. It was good to finally be joined by a worthy partner.

  Marvin sat down and dropped both legs into the muddy water. He slid from the bank and held his breath until both feet finished sinking into the hot muck. The brown water sloshed just above his knees. He had expected it to have cooled since he last felt it, but it was still plenty warm. In fact, the pool’s lowest level was downright scorching. He felt a twinge of unease. Unsure footing, heavy rock, hot water—was this even possible?

  Scalper Jim’s shadow struck the crater like a sundial.

  With his old buddy Jim at his side, of course he could pull it off. A warm memory came to him: Scalper Jim emerging from the dust and smoke of the Bluefeather rubble, pointing the way out with his arms of impervious oak. Marvin had been pleased to see Jim, though not entirely surprised. He had been privately speaking to the Indian for years, much as other inmates murmured to Jesus. It’s true, he had not confessed to Jo Beth that his escape had been orchestrated by a wooden Indian, but he knew that a master strategist like Jim would understand his reasons.

  The memory segued into a second scene that was not as pleasant. Cutting through a field on the way to the farm, Marvin had come across a man. At first Marvin had been startled; to be totally honest with himself, he’d even been a little bit frightened. Were the police that crafty? Then he had locked eyes with the man and recognized him from Bluefeather. Jeremiah. Marvin never forgot a name. That was shock enough before he noticed the old man’s clothes. They were his. He recognized the slacks, the long underwear shirt, the distinctive blots of his sweat stains. Marvin had felt sick to his stomach and had turned in the opposite direction.

  But Scalper Jim thought differently and snagged Jeremiah as the old man darted past. Marvin stepped carefully into the next row, at least he thought he remembered doing that, and observed from a safe distance as Scalper Jim picked up the old man by his saggy jowls. Marvin was not sure this punishment was necessary but could not help but watch. Here was Scalper Jim, the best killer in the world, and Marvin had front-row seats.

  It had been a textbook scalping.

  Once they had reached the farm, Marvin had been left to handle his family alone. That he had failed shamed him to no end, but Scalper Jim did not appear to place blame. The team was back together—that was the important thing. On their way to the crater Jim had acknowledged the ugly yellow Beetle and Marvin had happily removed the battery cables. No one could be permitted to ruin the dream of him, Jim, Sniggety, and the meteorite driving off together into the sunset.

  “Can’t wait, Jim.” Marvin chuckled. “So much to look forward to.”

  He sunk his arms below the surface and curved them around the circumference of the rock, but paused just short of grabbing hold. The heat was severe enough to make his palms perspire underwater. If the Professor, poor guy, were here, he would call this behavior reckless. Marvin appreciated that, but he also understood something that the Professor, for all of his book smarts, never could: what it meant to have waged a war against a piece of God’s earth and won. It meant—it had always meant—sacrifice.

  He hugged the rock with all of his might. The emotion he felt was wistful: Here was his final act as a farmer. But the true na
ture of the task did not reveal itself until he began to lift. The meteorite unstuck noisily from the mud, Marvin’s legs tottered beneath the weight, and then heat began its fast infection. Oh, it burned, how wonderfully it burned! And that wet sizzle, what a sound! But be calm, be steady, there was no reason for worry, because these arms were made of wood and one thing about wood is that it feels no pain.

  23 HRS., 8 MINS. AFTER IMPACT

  Ry believed that, given the chance, Scowler could devour entire worlds. What he could not do, however, was operate doors—he was just too short. Ry set him at the foot of the staircase and took a moment to deal with the front door. No one was getting out of here before Scowler’s business was completed. He secured all three locks. Then he picked up Scowler, conveniently doll-sized again, and jammed his leg through a link in the chain lock. It made a statement, he thought.

  A figure rushed across the dining room. Ry told Scowler that he would be back and began moving in that direction. His foot dragged a bit and Ry believed he could hear the metal of his exposed leg bone—he had an exposed leg bone, didn’t he?—as it gouged Jo Beth’s floor. He reached the edge of the dining room and paused to take in the scene. A fly flew into his open mouth, got lucky, and bounced off one of his teeth. He had so many of them, it seemed.

  Sarah was wearing shoes for the first time in a day and moving around so fast she appeared to levitate. She spotted Ry while Jo Beth stood at the table before a lethal buffet of kitchen implements, trying to decide if the meat cleaver was the one she really wanted most.

  “Mom.” Sarah squinted into the dark dining room. “Mom, look.”

  Jo Beth’s protective instinct defaulted to the back door. When a threat in that direction failed to manifest, she followed her daughter’s gaze until she, too, saw the figure looming from the adjacent room. Jo Beth forgot the cleaver and stepped closer, halting at the entryway right by the phone. Ry had a vision of blocking his mother with his arm at this very spot while she listed all of the reasons why they needed to leave the farm. The memory had to be fiction. No one would dream of abandoning this land before the harvest was in.

  “He’s chained by the doghouse,” Jo Beth said. “I’ve got the spare car keys but we’re going to have to circle way out by the machine shed because of the gun. Be ready to run. Ry? Got it?”

  Jo Beth started to turn away, but her eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness of the dining room and she noticed something awry, the blots of blood that mosaicked Ry’s jeans or the raspberry hue of his shirt or the orange coagulation that crusted his face and neck. Or perhaps it had something to do with her beloved gown, reincarnated as mangled bandages pasted to her son’s head.

  “Oh my—” Her tongue died halfway through the oath. “Oh my—”

  “He looks dead.” Sarah clutched her cheeks like a parody of someone in shock. “Is he? Mom? He looks dead!”

  Jo Beth made a vague gesture in Sarah’s direction.

  “He’s not.” Her voice was not at all convincing.

  Jo Beth inched closer, rapt by the snarl of fabric gathered at her son’s forehead. One of her hands rose and Ry idly wondered if it were coming to rest upon his heart or head. Instead the fingers lighted softly against her own lips.

  “Can you make it?” she whispered. “Tell me honestly.”

  Ry adjusted the giant cave of his toothed mouth.

  “Hk-tk,” he said. “Hk’a-tk.”

  Jo Beth’s neck seemed to melt. “Oh, Ry.”

  “He’s dead,” Sarah said from somewhere in the kitchen.

  “No.” This time the denial was sterner. “Your brother is not dead.”

  Ry became aware of something incredible. This woman and this girl were both ready to cry. For him. He could hear the brittle respiration, smell the salty pulse in the wrists and necks, follow how the eyelids blinked to keep the ocular organs moist. These little biological events delighted him. Being made of liquid and bone rather than cloth and steel might make you breakable, but being breakable, he decided, was a thrilling thing. He thought he might block Scowler from his brain, just for a moment, and reach out for this woman to see if she did the same.

  Then came the sound of the porch door being kicked from its hinges.

  23 HRS., 10 MINS. AFTER IMPACT

  Jo Beth spun around. Her elbow caught the phone, which clattered from its cradle and felled the miniature pine tree. Sarah was closest to the door, and the way that she looked at her mother, and the way that her mother looked at her, you’d think she was tumbling down the side of a crater instead of standing mere feet away.

  Footsteps crashed across the porch. Dishes rattled in their cabinets. Each step took longer than the previous, as if the walker himself were constructed of solidifying cement. Jo Beth’s paralysis broke and she lashed out with an arm, snatching Sarah’s wrist and pulling her into the dining room. Something thumped against the kitchen door and both mother and daughter cried out. Ry felt only a quickening of interest, and he moved toward the door just as Jo Beth and Sarah moved away. He shouldered by them without a look.

  The knob moved, but it was a sloppy job and it rattled back into starting position. Jo Beth muttered something to Sarah, and Ry could sense how hard his mother was staring at the cleaver. There were reasons they did not run. This could be the overdue appearance of the police or a neighbor. Both were legitimate possibilities, if not for the coppery stink that even now crept through the windows. Ry knew who it was and could not wait—he even considered helping with the door. Then the bolt went flush with the faceplate and there was a soft, familiar cluck, and then the door swung wide along caterwauling hinges.

  Marvin squatted upon the porch with his fingers dug into the crevices of the meteorite he carried. The steam gushing from the rock had scalded off his face so that his black mustache floated atop a glistening red mask. Against this open wound, Marvin’s grin was blindingly white. The eyes, having lost most of their lids, seemed twice as large as was possible, and they swirled with what looked like childlike wonderment before zeroing in on Ry. Marvin’s every muscle undulated with the effort required to handle such weight. The pause was charged and filled with the sound of sizzling fat.

  “Very.” The voice howled like a fugitive wind. “Heavy.”

  He baby-stepped outward for balance and the shotgun, pinned between chest and rock, crashed to the porch, the barrel blackened and smoking. With exquisite strain he stepped over it and into the kitchen. His lips were burned away but the skin around the mouth shaped into a grin anyway, and in the gap between the front teeth Ry could see steam rising from a fat purple tongue.

  Marvin bent his quaking knees and allowed gravity to roll the meteorite from his embrace. The sound of pulling duct tape ripped through the kitchen as the skin of his chest and arms came off with it. The rock slammed to the floor with the sound of buckling wood and sat there steaming, its uneven terrain coated with what looked like lasagna—orderly layers of shirt, skin, and muscle. Marvin blinked at the meteorite, then at his own landscape of exposed tissue. He flexed an arm experimentally and the whole family watched the contraction of a gray tendon and the plumping of a blue bicep.

  “Marvin!” The wife’s panic was learned, instant. “Oh, God! Marvin!”

  He staggered and runny blobs of flesh swung like taffy. It was a weak moment and looked wrong on Marvin Burke. After waiting for the flaps of skin to settle, he nodded briskly at the meteorite as if asking for one moment, please, while he caught his breath.

  “Don’t move,” Jo Beth said. “Don’t move.”

  The charred leftovers of his lips stirred as if he wanted a kiss.

  Ry reached down to the table and took up the cleaver.

  “Wait.” Jo Beth waved her hands. “You don’t have to. He’ll just …”

  The blade sang in Ry’s palm and Ry sang back: Tk, tk, tk.

  Further words failed Jo Beth. Instead she took handfuls of her son’s shirt. He stiffened. He was kin to Scowler now, and those like Scowler were not to be touched, no
t unless you wanted to risk losing a finger, or worse. Ry swiveled upon the sharpened point of his steel leg—he had a leg of steel, didn’t he?—and looked upon the one called Jo Beth, and behind her, yanking on her mother’s arm as her mother yanked on Ry, the one called Sarah.

  “Take the keys,” Jo Beth pleaded. “Take the car. Send help. Ry? Ry?”

  What he heard, though, was:

  Reeee​eeeee​eeeee​eeeee​eeeee​eeeee​eee!

  “Ry! Come on, let’s go!” This is what Sarah said.

  What he heard was:

  Aiiiiiiii-iiiiiiiii-iiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

  This is what monsters did. They misled. Ry did not appreciate such ploys, not one bit. In fact, they made his chest thicken with anger. But Scowler made it clear that the animal in the kitchen needed tending before other scores were settled. Ry grinned because he knew a thing or two about tending to animals, especially the bloodletting that came when they were done serving their purposes. Ry arranged the cleaver edge-out.

  “Tk,” he said.

  The heat of the meteorite had whipped the puddle of Marvin’s blood into pink fizz. The great farmer hunched and inspected this metamorphosis as he had once inspected proud seedlings. When he finally looked up, the swampy underside of his chin remained stuck to his sternum. With neck flesh dangling in ribbons, Marvin contemplated his son and the weapon he brandished. Placing a gluey hand to a knee, the man drew himself to full height. He would fight, despite how his body was melting. Ry could sense Scowler’s high regard for such devotion.

  The cleaver swung.

  The aim was flawed and found only the last knuckle of Marvin’s right hand. A bit of finger was flung to the table, though Marvin chose not to notice in a way that was almost polite. Ry leaned over the pale hunk and experienced a storm of revulsion that was one hundred percent Ry Burke, zero percent Scowler. Would his father need to be disassembled joint by joint? He’d never be able to do it. A bead of blood squeezed from the nub and Ry looked away, feeling the same sickness that had paralyzed him nine years ago with the bat and the shears. Maybe Mr. Furrington and Jesus Christ were right.