It doesn’t make sense, but I think if our parents had not reinforced that family would be there for you when others were not, then we might not have been brainwashed enough to keep speaking to one another. I certainly would not have believed that years down the line we would find joy in each other’s company.
Before I leave you with the broad notion that our shenanigans were truly dangerous (although I was made to eat dirt, grass, and gasoline). Most of our melees were easily subsided, and most of our pranks were hardly risqué enough for America’s Funniest Home Video.
In one instance, it snowed and my older sister and I had this great idea to prank our brother Sam. Sam came out of his bedroom, half awake. We instantly berated him, “Why aren’t you dressed for school yet? They didn’t cancel it! We have to go!”
Sam careened back into his bedroom and promptly got dressed. He was tightening his belt loop when my father saw him and asked, “What are you doing?”
“We still have school today.”
“Sam, it’s Saturday.”
My parents tried to get us back. The next snow day, they told us that our carpool could not make it up the driveway, but would instead pick us up at the bottom of an icy hill. My parents giggled from the front steps as we marched in the cold down the driveway and waited for a ride that was not coming.
They laughed as we slipped and fell on our way back up the hill once the game had been realized.
The thing is, they sent Sam as well.
Sometimes, life isn’t fair.
Thank you for reading.
-Daniel J. Kirk
3/31/16
THIS ONE IS BENJAMIN
(Original Rough Draft written June 8, 2012)
BENJAMIN:
There was a knock on the door. Followed by a few footsteps, and then the door opened. That’s all I could hear from my bed. I crawled down next to my bedroom door and laid my ear against the floor.
“Like I said, no one here by that name.”
I knew instantly they had come for me. My heart raced when the man started to rattle off my other aliases.
“No.”
He must’ve left one out. The name I gave the woman downstairs. I was getting careless. I used that name too many times in the past, but why hadn’t the man at the door mentioned it.
“It’s just me and my son here,” the woman said.
My teeth almost snapped off. Don’t say my name!
“Your son Benjamin?” The man had been clever.
I could already hear the woman answering proudly when she surprised me.
“I don’t know what your business here is, but I would ask you that you leave.”
I almost pounded the carpet with glee.
The way the floorboards creaked beneath the man at the door, I knew he had grown frustrated. Perhaps he was even trying to push the doorframe apart, eyes boiling red.
“I’m sorry to bother you. Here is my card, if anyone by the names I mentioned happens to show up you will let us know?” He sounded so pleasant.
“Sure, what’s this about?”
“A missing child.”
I could feel the woman gasp even if I couldn’t hear it with these tiny ears.
“I hope you find them.”
“Me, too, ma’am,” the man said, and the floorboards sighed as he pushed through the screen door and walked off the porch. A few seconds later the woman closed the front door. The deadbolt clashed. Then there was silence. I could hear her heavy breathing as she watched the man leaving out the window.
I was almost foolish enough to jump up from the floor and go look out my bedroom window, but he’d be smart enough, he’d be watching for such a careless error.
“Ben!” she called for me.
I rose up and waited for a moment before I opened the door, lest she assume I was spying.
“Yes, Mommy?”
“Why don’t you come downstairs and help me in the kitchen for a while.”
I didn’t argue. I could hear the protective tone in her voice. She was going to keep me safe if that man returned.
I walked quietly down the stairs and kept clear of any windows until my head sunk below the kitchen counter and I was next to the woman’s hips.
“Are we going to make cookies?” I played the part. I’d played it so many times before, made it to adulthood most of the time. A few careless mistakes happened early on, but not this run. This run I planned to make it to what they simply called, ‘dying of old age.’
“Sure, honey.” She wrestled her fingers through my hair and feigned the kind of smile she imagined herself making months before I was born.
One day that smile will hurt her.
JACK:
My throat was going to be scratchy the rest of the night; I almost took my anger out on the mother. But the fear in her eyes was satisfying enough. I paced until the stinging went out of my chest and my fingers started to feel like they were receiving blood flow again.
“You should’ve let us explain,” my partner said, holding his blood-soaked leg in the corner of the room. He found some more colorful words to mutter while he shook the feeling back into his arms.
It was the worst part of this job.
The best was knowing we caught one. That we got it off this earthly plain for a few more months.
Once all the feeling in our bodies returns, that’s when the pain hurts more, but it is more like fuel. Making you want to go back to school and learn the art better so that next time, you can catch this brat on the first try.
“I don’t understand.” She was in the sobbing stage. Perhaps that was the worst part. All the duped mothers in total shock, no not my child!
Every time.
Not her fault. We had guys in the hospitals these days. There were ways of predicting a birth. Of course that wasn’t my expertise. My expertise was taking pain.
“We will,” I coughed, “provide a cover story, we have several to choose from that will make this situation easier for friends and families.”
I was going by the book now. What I wanted to say but couldn’t say was that evil seed of destruction she thought was her perfect little son is still on the loose and his refusal to come easily means we kill on sight.
“What is he?” She looked at me through the tears that could very well be drowning her.
“Ma’am, they found a way to be born. For centuries they have snuck into our world of more than just mischief. They are the destroyers of kingdoms, the sowers of wishes, and the rapists of dreams. Shakespeare spoke pleasantly about one, named him Puck. Another you might’ve heard of by the name of Rumpelstilskin, or if you want to stretch fiction a bit more, Damien is also another good example.”
I needed a glass of water followed by some rum. That would clear this cough up.
She blinked waiting for me to continue.
“He used you like a way station. Just biding time for when he was older and his powers could do more to harm mankind. I’m sure he was the perfect child, the child every mother wished she could have.”
MOTHER:
Every cough pierced my mind, sharp wretched daggers like thunder. If I can collect my thoughts, remember what I saw, it will make this all easier. I will be able to stop crying. I will be able to get up and help these two men who broke into my house and battled my son.
Battled Benjamin.
My son.
I can’t hold it together and he has the nerve to keep answering my sobs.
“And I can guarantee he would’ve continued to be a sweet young boy for a few years more. But the day would come. It’s better now. I’ve seen parents who’ve killed themselves when they learned what their ‘child’…” he put such a strong emphasis on the word as if he meant solely to mock my failure to see the evil in my own son.
He coughed and almost doubled over this time. I think he is coughing up blood. My son did that to him.
No. Not my son.
Benjamin did that to him.
The other one in the corner curses m
y name. He blames me for this. It is my fault. I let him inside me.
I birthed him.
“Another team is on their way, ma’am. Don’t you worry, they’ll take care of him.”
He was talking about his partner bleeding to death on my carpet. I wanted him dead. He didn’t matter to me. I wanted Benjamin to be my son again.
My perfect little angel.
My Benjamin.
I said his name out loud.
“It was the name he gave you. It wasn’t one you or your husband picked out. These guys are very particular.”
He was pouring himself water and started to look through my cabinets for what? Something to eat?
“You got any of the hard stuff, for my partner there. Just so he can hold on until the other team gets here?”
Had I not heard his partner wailing in the corner? Had my sobs drowned out the entire world around me?
“Behind the potatoes in the pantry.” I said like it was nothing. It was nothing. Nothing mattered anymore.
I pushed the last bit of liquid from my eyes and slammed them shut.
I thought of the day he was born.
His face being wiped clean by the nurse as I begged to hold him.
How I knew.
I held him up for my husband to see and said, “This one is Benjamin.”
THE END.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel J. Kirk is a resident of Richmond, Virginia. He has written and published westerns, horror, and science fiction short stories throughout the digital world.
He has several ongoing series, including the urban fantasy series: THE HATCHBACK WOMAN; the alien invasion series: INVASIVE SPECIES and the superhero saga, UPGRADE.
He can be contacted at: [email protected]
Or if you prefer to receive email notifications, please subscribe to Daniel J. Kirk’s e-Newsletter THIS DANNED MIND.
And visit www.brideofchaos.com to keep up to date with new releases featuring Mr. Kirk and many more authors.
Other Stories by Daniel J. Kirk’s available now:
THE FORGOTTEN PRINCESS: A NOVEL
THE HATCHBACK WOMAN #1-9
THE HATCHBACK WOMAN #10-18
WESTERN ENDING: SIX TALES OF THE WEST
© 2016 Daniel J. Kirk
Thank you for reading!
© 2016 Bride of Chaos
This One is Deadly Page 7