Insomnia: Paranormal Tales, Science Fiction, & Horror

by Saul Tanpepper

  No, he had to wait until the man was in the basement.

  He looked at the light bulb the man had replaced. What he needed was to be able to turn off the light after the man came down. But how?

  His eyes drifted back over to the toilet. He shifted his body so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed. He waited for the dizziness to pass before standing and going over to it. Gingerly, he lifted the cover from the storage tank and looked inside. Then he smiled grimly. A new plan was beginning to form in his mind.

  He spent the next hour preparing, resting often, throwing up once. He knew he needed to slow down, otherwise he was going to make himself too weak to be of any use to himself.

  He drank.

  The water in the tank was clear, if not rusty-tasting and slightly reddish, but at least it wasn’t mixed with waste. He took long gulps before stopping himself, recognizing he needed to conserve it.

  But then he saw how the flusher had been disconnected from the flapper. The chain had sunk to the bottom of the tank. He reached in and lifted the flapper and waited with baited breath as the toilet bowl emptied and the cleaner, fresher water replaced it from the tank. If he was wrong, he’d just flushed away the only drinking water he had.

  But the tank refilled, and the water was even fresher and cleaner that what had been in it, and he drank more of it, cupping his good hand and slurping from it until his shirt was drenched.

  Surprisingly, the pain in his hand returned and the bleeding resumed, as if he’d simply been too dehydrated before to bleed or feel it. He had to rest. Plucking the flush chain from the tank, he set the cover back on, then went over to the bed and lay down.

  He fell asleep going over the plan in his head.

  † † †

  David was angry, and when he was angry he did foolish things which made him even angrier.

  He hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself, but the incident in the basement that morning had rattled him. He hadn’t expected such cleverness. The boy had hidden underneath the stairs and had tried to run away while he was distracted. But he’d locked the door, of course. The only thing the boy had achieved was to make him angry.

  It had become immediately obvious to David that the boy’s spirit would take longer to break. That’s why he’d done what he did, even though he knew the finger would be of no use to him come time to make the offering. He’d tossed it into the garbage disposer and let the machine grind it to bits before leaving. One less finger to offer the gods. One less finger for himself.

  “The sacrifices we make,” he mumbled to himself as he drove into town.

  He gathered the old man’s mail from the box and let himself inside. The house was cold and dark, silent as a tomb. Well, it was a tomb, after all. A monument to an old broken man who now lay buried in a half-dozen separate five-gallon paint drums in the basement.

  He tossed the mail into the trash bin and sat on the couch. He was still shaking from this morning and decided he needed to gather himself before showing up at the school in the afternoon. He tried to relax.

  The boy was smart. And strong. Smarter and stronger than he’d expected. It was another reason he disliked older children. They were too much of a hassle.

  He closed his eyes and replayed the morning, watching it behind closed lids like a movie, judging every aspect of it, rewinding and reviewing it from different angles.

  The mop was what bothered him the most. He’d used it to clean up after the last child and had accidentally forgotten it. He was getting careless, and carelessness led to accidents and accidents led to getting caught. He couldn’t afford that. The gods depended on him.

  But he’d removed the mop, so that wasn’t a problem anymore.

  Still, he’d been taken by surprise. He wouldn’t let himself be surprised again. He started to run through an inventory in his mind of what was down in the basement that the boy might be able to use: the bed and the bed clothes, the bucket, the milk crate, the rug. As soon as he returned after school today, he’d go down and remove everything, leaving only the mattress. And that included the board the boy had pulled off the wall.

  “Goddamn kid,” he muttered, still drifting in that nowhere place, half asleep, half awake. The stupid boy had no right to tear his house apart like that. What was he thinking? He should be grateful, offering himself up to the gods. Not every kid got such a chance.

  He awoke with a start, not immediately aware of where he was. The clock on the wall said two-fifteen and his stomach growled with hunger. But he had no time to eat. He needed to be at the school. Now, more than ever, he needed to be there, needed to act normally. His absence now would not go unnoticed.

  He launched himself off of the couch and made one more quick pass through the house to make sure everything was locked and shut tight, then he went out the front door.

  A slip of paper fluttered down, catching his eye. He reached to get it, but the wind blew it away. He chased after it, each time getting closer to it before the paper fluttered just out of reach. Finally, it drifted off the porch and settled into the bushes.

  Delivery attempted at 12:12 p.m. Will retry tomorrow.

  It was for his chloroform.

  “Dammit.”

  He’d missed the delivery and now he’d have to wait until the next day before the company would attempt another drop-off. He hadn’t planned on coming into town again until the weekend.

  He crumpled the paper in his fist and stuck it in his pocket. He felt the rage building up inside of him, but he couldn’t seem to find a way to make it go away.

  Thankfully, the rest of the afternoon passed without incident. The children leaving the school may have been slightly quieter than usual, but they had been a lot quieter the day before. And other than the police car sitting in the handicapped space in the teacher’s lot, things seemed to be getting back to normal. He even spied several kids heading for Suicide Run.

  “How quickly they forget,” he muttered to himself as some little girls walked past him. He waved and smiled at them and they waved back. He didn’t trust their fake smiles one little bit.

  When he got home, he dropped his keys in a bowl on the counter, then stepped over to the freezer and removed something for dinner. He set it in a bowl of warm water to thaw.

  Then, armed with his carving knife, he unlocked the basement door.

  He pushed it open while stepping back and holding the knife out in front of him, but the boy was not on the staircase. The light was on; the boy had learned his lesson.

  “When I get down there, you better be sitting on that bed,” he growled. “Or this time I’ll take more than a piece of your little finger.” He heard the bed springs compress and he chuckled. He began to descend the steps.

  Angling his body so the wall protected his back, he turned to lock the door behind him. There was no sound from down below.

  “Andy?”

  “I want to go home. I won’t tell any—”

  “Shut up.”

  He heard the boy make a strangled sound.

  “Now, I’m going to come down there, and I’m going to take a few things. You’ve lost your privileges. If you behave, maybe I’ll let you have them back.” He heard the boy gasp. “Don’t worry, I won’t touch you, not unless you try something stupid. I hope you won’t try anything stupid.”

  He waited.

  “Promise me, boy.”

  “I won’t do anything stupid.”

  He smiled. “There you go. See how easy that was?”

  He went down the steps, still holding the knife in front of him. He bent down to look into the room. The boy was sitting on the bed, just as he was supposed to be doing.

  “Good. If you move…” He reached into his back pocket and withdrew the snippers. He gave the boy a wicked smile and squeezed them a couple times so that they clacked. “Next time I won’t be so gentle.”

  † † †

  Andrew didn’t know how long he’d slept before waking again. He didn’t know if the man had returned, but
he was still on his back on the bed when he woke. He jumped up and immediately regretted the sudden movement as the room spun around him.

  But he needed to hurry.

  He took the chain he’d retrieved from the toilet and fed it through the metal cage protecting the light bulb, then around the bulb itself, burning his fingers a few times before finally succeeding in getting it to stay. He left it to dangle and hoped the man wouldn’t see it.

  Next, he went over to the stairs and tested the boards that made each step, tugging at each one to find which of them were loose. He found three—the third, fifth and sixth from the bottom—and he removed the boards from the latter two, bent down the nails and replaced the boards. They wobbled a little but after slipping a piece of cloth beneath them, they settled into place. He tested them by standing on them and they felt solid.

  Next, he reached into the toilet tank and pulled out the rubber float and disconnected it from the lever arm. Using his teeth, he managed to tear a hole into one end of it. He pulled the nails from his pocket and poked several through from the inside, then he lined the inside with cloth. Lastly, he pulled it over the closed fist of his right hand.

  He nearly fainted from the pain. With the hand inside the bulb, he could the warm, wet, stickiness spreading. The stump of his pinky was bleeding again.

  He took a drink from the toilet tank and then settled back on the bed to rest. And wait.

  The man didn’t return for a long time, and when he did Andrew had nearly fallen asleep again.

  He heard the key slip into the lock and the door open.

  He waited.

  Then, just as he was about to slip off the bed, the man spoke: “When I get down there, you better be sitting on that bed.”

  Andrew shifted, hiding his hand inside a bundle of the blanket and clutching it to his chest. He didn’t have to pretend very much to look like he was in pain; the hand was on fire now.

  The man came down, saying things that Andrew barely managed to reply to.

  This time, he had a knife.

  He ignored Andrew and picked up the bucket and milk crate from the floor and took them back upstairs. He repeated his warnings the next time he came down, chuckling evilly when Andrew feigned even more pain. This time he picked up the plywood board and took it upstairs.

  Each time the man came and went, Andrew swallowed his fear and watched through slitted eyelids when he stepped on the fifth and sixth steps, but they didn’t move and the man didn’t seem to notice anything unusual about them.

  The third time he came down, he ordered Andrew off the bed.

  “Why?” he moaned.

  “Until you learn to behave, I’m taking away all your belongings.”

  “I want to go home.”

  The man laughed and yanked at Andrew. “Shut up. Now, get up before I—”

  Andrew pulled away the blanket and lashed out with his fist. He felt his hand connect with the man’s face and they both screamed as the nails tore gashes across his cheek. The knife flew across the room.

  Andrew lashed out again before the man could move away. This time the nails sunk into the man’s neck.

  His head swimming now in agony and weakness, Andrew drew his arm back as far as he could. Blood spurted from the man’s wounds and he staggered back, throwing his hands to his throat to stop the flow. But the blood leaked through his hands, through the gap between the man’s second and fourth fingers, the missing third.

  Andrew tried to follow, but his knees gave out and crashed to the floor. He barely managed to move aside before the man’s knee whipped out. It caught his left arm and spun him around, but not before he jabbed into the man’s thigh.

  The man screamed again. Blood poured from the new wound. Andrew slashed one last time, missing completely, before staggering to his feet. The man crashed to the floor, one hand at his neck, the other on his leg.

  “I’ll kill you!” he screamed. “Look what you’ve done!”

  Andrew limped over to the center of the room and pulled the chain. It burned into the skin of his palm, but he didn’t let go. The chain held for a moment, then he heard the glass crack and the light popped and went out. The room was thrown into darkness.

  “I’ll kill you, boy!”

  The man was already getting back to his feet. There was no time to find the knife.

  Andrew ran to the steps and counted. He found the cloth and pulled the wood loose. Leaving the boards barely in place, he stepped over them and waited at the top of the stairs.

  He heard the man step-lurch across the room. He heard him crash into the bed and fall to the floor, screaming curses. He heard him stand again and make his way to the steps.

  “You can’t escape,” he gasped. “The door is locked and I have the key in my pocket”

  He heard the thump as the man stepped on the first step.

  “Do you know what I’m going to do to you when I catch you, boy?”

  Andrew didn’t answer.

  “Do you!” the man screamed, making him jump.

  Thump…shuffle: he was on the second step

  “I’m going to cut off your tongue first, then your lips, then your nose and ears. I’m going to let you keep your eyes so you can watch when I cut off all your fingers and toes.”

  Andrew swallowed. It made a dry click in his throat. A white hot darkness threatened to consume him, but he pushed it away.

  Thump…shuffle: third step.

  “The gods must be satisfied, Andy. They—”

  “My name’s Andrew, not Andy!”

  Thump…shuffle: fourth step.

  “They need their sacrifices, Andy. Do you know what will happen if they don’t get them?”

  Andrew held his breath. He was shaking so hard that he was sure the man could hear him.

  “Well do you!” the man screamed.

  Thump…shuffle: fifth step. It squeaked, but held. Andrew squeezed his eyes closed and prayed. The man was so close now that he could almost feel his breath on him.

  There was a gurgle, followed by a sharp inhale. Andrew could hear him press again the railing.

  “It would be horrible, Andy. This town would whither up and die. The gods demand their sacrifices.”

  The man’s breathing was now growing tortured. He was gasping for air.

  “They have…always been so…modest, Andy. In their demands. Do you understand? But what…what will they do if they don’t get what they want?”

  Thump.

  It was the sixth step.

  “They won’t be happy at—aieeeee!”

  With a crash the steps gave way. There was a loud thump of something soft hitting wood, the crunch of bones cracking.

  Andrew lashed out with his foot and it connected with something hard.

  The man screamed.

  He kicked again and again, and each time the man screamed, but the screamed grew weaker.

  Andrew was near exhaustion. He kicked one last time, but the man grabbed his ankle and pulled. He found himself falling, sliding down the steps. With a lurch, he managed to throw himself over the gap and past the man. Tumbling down the last few steps, he somersaulted onto the landing behind him.

  Barely managing to get to his feet, Andrew made his way in the dark across the floor, feeling with his good hand. He could hear the man struggling, but the effort was feeble. He was trapped in the gap between steps.

  Finally, his fingers found what he was looking for. His hand closed around the handle of the knife. He turned and crawled back to the stairs.

  “You’ll be sorry,” the man was saying. The words were coming out garbled, sounding like they were being spoken under water. “The gods—”

  “Here’s their sacrifice,” Andrew said, and he thrust the knife forward.

  There wasn’t even a scream this time, just the sound of flesh being torn. Followed by a single exhale. Then silence.

  † † †

  He spent the next week recovering in the hospital, an IV in his arm for the first four of those da
ys pumping in antibiotics to treat the infection, fluids to reverse his dehydration. After the sixth day, Andrew was finally able to keep food down. Eight days after his ordeal, he returned home.

  The police kept his family informed of their progress on the case. They had searched David Sotheby’s home but never did find the rest of Andrew’s finger. Nor was there any evidence of any of the other children who’d turned up missing.

  And, rather disturbingly, they never found David, either.

  “If everything your son has told us is accurate,” they told Mr. and Mrs. Gardner, “and we have no reason to doubt his claims given the amount of Sotheby’s blood we found at the scene, we have no idea how this guy could have survived long enough to make his escape. Nor can we even begin to guess where he might’ve gone. We’re looking into the possibility that he might’ve had a partner.”

  It was a mystery, and like a scab that kept catching and tearing, the case remained unsolved.

  But the town desperately wanted to move on, and so it tried, willfully putting the past behind them, eventually forgetting the children who had gone missing in years past, the children who had never been found. They pushed those memories so far back in their minds that they never trip over them by accident. They were there, but packed away, out of sight.

  Just like last time.

  So when neighborhood pets began to disappear, nobody said anything. Nobody made the obvious connection. Nobody wanted to think about it. Not even when it was Sarah Gardner’s cat, found dead in a garbage can, missing both its ears.

  Modest sacrifices for modest gods.

  Better than the alternative.

  ‡ ‡

  Author’s note

  The subjects of The Sacrifices We Make are probably the most sensitive I’ve attempted in some time: child abduction and abuse, maiming, murder. But I think what makes this tale especially gruesome is the psychosis expressed by David. What are we to think of him and his belief in his “gods”? Is he simply rationalizing his own selfish behavior or is there something more at play here? Is the town complicit in his actions?