Grimm Reapings

by R. Patrick Gates

  The best is yet to come!

  She assaulted him with the thought as the boys got on their respective bicycles and started down the street, Steve still leading the way. Turning left on Depot Street, Steve knew his fears for Jimmy Walsh were not unfounded. Depot Street was the town's steepest hill ending in a busy intersection at the bottom.

  "Race you! " Steve couldn't stop his vocal cords from calling to Jimmy at the crest of the hill. He started down, pedaling wildly.

  Jimmy, who had done this many times, was more than game and plunged after. Halfway down, he heard a metallic doing followed by a whizzing sound. A moment later he realized he had no brakes. He screamed to his mother to help him, but thatwasn't his mother riding the other bike-it was that sick freak, Steve Nailer, Randy's faggot friend.

  And he was giving Jimmy the finger.

  Jimmy didn't know what to do. Traffic at the bottom of the hill was heavy-the traffic lights were out and cars were speeding through unchecked. He tried to steer the bike toward the curb where he could jump off and hopefully reach the grass beyond the sidewalk, but the road had other plans for him. His front tire hit a frost heave in the pavement and he lost control. Suddenly, he no longer had a bike under him and the street was rushing up at him.

  He hit face-first and slid on it for nearly ten yards, leaving a long bloody smear on the road, before tumbling over and flopping down the hill another ten yards and coming to a crumpled halt. His bike slid along the blacktop, sending up a spray of sparks, and came to a stop well before Jimmy did.

  Not believing the horror of what he was witnessing, Steve cringed as he watched Jimmy's spectacular crash. His body pedaled over, skidding the bike to a stop next to Jimmy's twitching body. He was lying on his back, his feet pointing down the hill, what was left of his head pointing back the way he'd come, to the smear of blood and flesh that ended ten yards up the hill. A few feet above Jimmy's head lay an eyeball with a long string of bloody tissue still connected to it. Steve looked at it, then back at Jimmy. That was definitely Jimmy's face all over the road back there because it was no longer on Jimmy's head where it belonged.

  Steve reeled from the sight, but it was nothing compared to what happened next. His body reached down, scooped up a wad of hamburger that used to be Jimmy Walsh's face, and licked it from his fingers as though it were the tastiest frosting ever.

  "You'd better get used to the taste, boy, if you're going to stick around!"

  The witch's voice, old and evil, battered him like an orchestra of a thousand amplified bass guitars all set on maximum volume. He didn't resist as the pressure of it sent him hurtling into the depths of oblivion. He welcomed the fall; falling was escape from the horrors of what his body was doing. Falling brought separation from, and ignorance of, reality, and ignorance, as they say, is bliss, and for Steve, bliss was unconsciousness.

  He became as unconscious as the dead . . . but didn't die.

  "I went to the school department yesterday and registered you as a homeschooler again," Diane said to Steve the next morning at breakfast. "I called Mr. Gaste and he can come by this afternoon, and Mr. Levine, your math tutor, can start tomorrow morning."

  "I never told you to do that!" Steve shouted furiously at her. "Call them back and tell them to forget it!"

  He looked at her and her eyes glazed. She nodded. "Of course," she said, but her voice was hesitant.

  "Don't worry," Steve added, "you can go do whatever it is you do every day." He grinned. "I'll be fine. I'll help Jen."

  Diane blushed but was relieved. With having Steve homeschooled again, she'd been anxious about being able to continue her trysts with Trevor. She was a maelstrom of anticipation and desire. Trevor had been out of town for a few days and would return tomorrow. She couldn't wait to see him. Getting up from the table, she caught her reflection in the glass door of the microwave oven on the counter. She had to admit she looked damned good for a woman in her forties.

  Her forties. She cringed at the number. How old was Trevor? She realized she didn't know, but he was considerably younger than her. She doubted he was over thirty. Her old friends, Self-Doubt and Poor SelfImage, popped up, raising questions like: Why would a guy as handsome and young as Trevor be interested in a middle-aged broad like her? He could have anyone he wanted, and she did not think that lightly, she believed it. Anyone!

  So ... why her?

  Doubt had its usual crushing effect, bringing a thick depression. More doubts crept in once the floodgates were open, and she imagined Trevor's motives for wanting her to be everything from a desire for her money to a pedophilic desire for Steve. Her thoughts ranged from the rational to the ludicrous and back again, but that one question kept digging at her-why was he interested in her?

  She decided there was only one way to find out. The next time she saw him, she had to confront him.

  Steve was sitting in the room that used to be Edmund Grimm's study when the phone rang. It was now Jeremy's office where he planned to handle all the finances for the B&B. Steve was sitting at Edmund Grimm's actual desk when Jeremy popped his head in to tell him that Randy Gaste was on the line.

  "What're you doing at my desk?" Jeremy asked, trying to see if any of the papers Steve had in front of him were accounts for the B&B.

  "Homework," Steve replied, picking up the phone.

  Yeah, Tight, Jeremy thought and started away but paused outside the door and listened when he heard Steve put the call on speaker.

  "Did you hear about Jimmy Walsh?" the caller asked.

  "No. Why?"

  Jeremy peered around the corner. Steve had a strange half smile curling his lips that gave Jeremy a chill.

  "He had a wicked bike accident yesterday! He's dead. He wiped out on Depot Hill-you know where."

  "Yeah, that's a mean hill," Steve agreed in a normal voice, following with a pantomime of hysterical, openmouthed laughter.

  Jeremy shuddered at the creepy display.

  "Yeah," Randy went on excitedly. "He wiped out good. Tommy Whit's uncle is an EMT and Tommy heard him say that when they got to the scene Jimmy didn't have a face anymore. It had been scraped off when he hit the road. Tommy's uncle had to peel Jimmy's face off the road with a putty knife."

  Steve abruptly burst into laughter and disconnected the call, startling Jeremy so, he stumbled back, almost knocking over an antique table and lamp in the hallway. In the office, Steve heard the noise and stopped laughing. Jeremy froze and held his breath, sensing that Steve was listening. He was suddenly afraid and didn't understand why. After a few trembling moments, he crept away as quietly as possible.

  In the study, Steve listened to Jeremy creeping away, smiled, and whispered:

  "Curiosity killed Little Boy Blue."

  On the other end of the line, Randy Gaste heard the click, followed by the dial tone, and couldn't believe Steve had hung up on him. And the way he'd been laughing ... Randy began to wonder just where Steve Nailer had been yesterday when Jimmy Walsh had his accident.

  The next morning, as Randy was riding his bike to school along Route 116, he saw Steve Nailer on his bike, too, riding with determination, but not to school. Near the intersection where a right would have taken him to Mt. Sugarloaf Middle School and a left to Sunderland, he turned left.

  Steve didn't see Randy Gaste on the opposite side of the intersection, watching him. When he rode away, in the opposite direction of school, Randy hesitated a moment, then followed Steve. Before seeing him in school two days ago, on the day Jimmy Walsh died, and the weird phone call yesterday when Randy had called to tell him about it, Randy hadn't seen or spoken to Steve in months-he'd come to school that one day in January, and never came back.

  Randy had asked in the office and was told that Steve was sick with mononucleosis and would be out for a while. But when he and his father had driven over to their house in Sunderland last week, no one had been home. Then Steve showed up in school, looking healthy, and now here he was coming from the direction of Northwood and turning away from s
chool.

  Randy knew Mrs. Nailer had called his dad twice yesterday, first to ask him to start tutoring Steve again, the second time to cancel the tutoring. His interest was piqued and he decided to play spy. He followed at a safe distance since it appeared Steve was heading home. He pulled up across the street from Steve's and saw him chain his bike to the tree in the yard. Randy crossed the street, left his bike at the edge of Steve's yard, and nonchalantly traversed the front lawn. A quick look around to make sure no one was watching and he ducked behind the front bushes, under the bay window. He was about to look in when the sound of a car coming down the street made him duck again. A moment later, Steve's mother's car pulled into the driveway. She got out and hurried inside.

  Solitude ... blessed solitude.

  Free at last of all distractions.

  With her host's psyche comatose again she can nourish herself and deal with the artist. Then ... she can put into motion a plan for the revenge she has waited thirteen years for.

  She is feeling strong. So strong, she can keep the old mother doing the flesh dance with an imaginary lover while she feeds in the basement. Abusing the sow was fun at first, but it has grown tiresome. She much prefers the ready young flesh of the angel faced one called Debbie.

  But then, she has always preferred young flesh.

  "Trevor, I need to ask you something," Diane said immediately upon entering the house. He looked up at her with that face and she almost forgot why she was upset.

  "Why are you with me?" she asked, her voice weak and limp from the effect he had on her.

  "Because I love you," he answered, his tone, more than his words, conveying a subtle symphony that caressed her ears and wanted to carry her away.

  "No." She fought his seduction. "I'm forty years old. You could have any woman in the world. Why me?"

  Trevor stood and took her in his arms, looking deeply into her eyes. "Love's a mystery, Diane. Who knows why two people fall in love? You can't analyze it, it just is. Enjoy it."

  He kissed her and it was the last little emotional shove she needed to go over the edge and succumb fully to his reasoning. In what had become nearly a daily ritual, he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom where she gave herself over to him physically as well.

  Outside, Randy Gaste crouched by the side of the house, debating whether to continue spying, or just go ring the front doorbell and ask Steve and his mom what the hell was going on. Being a boy and being that playing spy was fun, Randy opted for the latter and crept back to the window. He peered inside and was disappointed to see the living room empty. He craned his neck to see the kitchen, too. Empty.

  He darted around the other side of the house, wary of being seen, and crept to the first window there. What he saw shocked him, and made him laugh at the same time. On the bed, Steve's Nailer's mom was naked, on all fours, rocking back and forth and moaning, "Oh, Trevor! Oh, Trevor!" over and over again though she was alone in the room.

  Randy dropped to a crouch as nervous giggles erupted from him. The cellar window was directly in front of him, giving him a perfect view into the basement. Steve Nailer was down there, bending over a green table that had a pile of raw meat on it. Randy crouched and leaned closer. He was sorry he did when Steve Nailer paused from eating the heart of a girl whose body lay butchered on the table before him and looked directly into Randy Gaste's eyes.

  Randy's next conscious thought was, Why won't this bike go any faster? He tried and couldn't pedal fast enough-shades of Jimmy Walsh-but he tried to break the laws of physics anyway. He didn't know why he had to pedal so fast, or what he was pedaling away from, but he knew it was imperative that he do so, and fast! His legs pumped furiously and to a pedestrian he seemed to fly by, but to Randy, relativity made him feel as if he were barely moving at all and his growing panic was equally relative to how fast he wanted his legs to pedal but could not achieve.

  He whizzed through two dangerous intersections with barely a glance for traffic and was heading for Route 116, the home stretch, when he first heard it behind him. Fearfully, he glanced over his shoulder. An involuntary shriek of terror sprang from his lips. He pushed his aching legs harder, trying not to hear the thing scuttling after him. His adolescent mind raced along with the bike, trying to get a grip on what was happening, trying to make some sense of it and find a way out of it.

  There was neither.

  "Let's go for a ride." Steve stood in the doorway, wiping blood from his chin, and spoke to his naked mother, still gyrating on the bed. "Let's go, you fat-ass bitch. I haven't got all day."

  Diane smiled lovingly at him. "I love the things you say to me, Trevor. Every word is perfect, like poetry." She was unfazed by her lover's hysterical laughter in reaction to her words as she hurried to get out of bed and dress. Outside, she never wondered where Trevor's car was, or, for that matter, that she had never seen his car. He took her keys without asking and got in to start the engine, leaving her to scramble to get in before he peeled out of the driveway.

  Across the street, the Nailers' elderly neighbor, a retired schoolteacher, Mrs. Trank, was just coming out of her house on her way to her weekly hairdressing appointment. A born busybody, she paused at her car and watched as Diane Nailer and her son came out of their house. Her eyes widened with shock, then narrowed with disapproval watching Mrs. Nailer give her keys to her thirteen-year-old and letting him drive.

  That's against the law!

  She strode to the end of her driveway and stood, hands on hips, glaring at them and doing everything with her body posture to show her negative opinion of Mrs. Nailer's parenting as their car went by, but her outrage was only incensed further when the young Nailer boy winked at her, then flipped his middle finger at her!

  Spiders.

  No. The image is fuzzy. The boy's fear is too strong; it acts like a barrier she has to push through. It is exhausting to do so. Once inside, his mind is a jumble of flying thoughts swirling in a maelstrom of adrenaline fueled terror.

  Her foot slips off the gas pedal and she curses her host's shortness. Worse, she loses contact.

  "What's wrong, Trevor?" the old mother in the seat next to her asks.

  The sound of her love-doped voice is almost as excruciating as breaking glass.

  "Shut the fuck up, you cow! " she growls, hating the less than menacing tone her adolescent voice squeaks out.

  "Yes, dear."

  She struggles to reach the pedal again. The car is losing speed, the boy getting away. It's all happening too fast and her foot is not the only thing sliding. The distractions of her body's limitations keep her from seeing what she needs to capture the boy. Finally, she regains the gas pedal and, sitting forward, clutching the wheel with both hands, resumes the chase.

  The images begin to fly again; the boy's thoughts catch in the psychic web she casts. An image comes, stronger than the rest. It wavers, grows clear. Not spiders, but something leggy ... Yes!

  "Daddy, please! Daddy, please! Daddy, please!" The words ran like a stream from Randy Gaste's mouth and became a prayer, but the litany could not ward off the thing behind him, getting closer by the moment. The sound of its many legs on the pavement made him shiver in disgust. The sound grew louder, closer. His frantic, repetitive plea for paternal help accelerated in response.

  He didn't want to turn and look, but he couldn't help it. The clattering of the thing's legs, the whirring whiplash buzz of its antennae slicing the air were so loud he knew it had to be right behind him. He turned and three things happened at the same time: He screamed at the sight of the car-sized cockroach chasing him; he lost control of his bike, and one of the insect's cable-thick antennae slammed into his side, knocking him from his falling bike into a fat, scarred old elm tree growing curbside. The cockroach roared by, crushing Randy's bike underfoot, spitting it out in a dented heap, and kept on going.

  Randy Gaste hit the tree and bounced off as though he were made of rubber. He wasn't, and his skull split like ripe fruit, spraying his brains all over
the tree bark. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  What a waste!

  Killing the boy was not what she wanted. His capture would have provided needed sustenance and so much more ... fun! Now all wasted.

  A clear image suddenly comes to her, playing like a silent film in her mind: Randy Gaste, age five or six, lying in bed, watching TV and eating popcorn, dropping kernels into the sheets every time he puts some in his mouth. The scene darkens and brightens and it is several hours later. Randy Gaste is asleep and covered in cockroaches feasting on the bonanza of spilled popcorn on him and in the sheets. He wakes screaming when one crawls in his open, snoring mouth and he bites it before realizing what it is and spits it out. The light comes on, the cockroaches scatter, and Randy's father rushes in.

  The boy clings to him, is soothed, and the image fades.

  "Too little too late! " she grumbles. Why didn't, the Machine show her that before instead of latching on to the first thing-cockroaches-the boy's fearful mind threw out?

  "What, Trevor?" the old mother asks.

  "Fuck you."

  "Okay, my love."

  This after-the fact knowledge and her lack of control over the boy's death are disturbing and frightening. She had hoped that when she finally banished the draining and distracting presence of her host, she would return to normal, but it appears that is not to be. Before her botched soul transfer and thirteenyear coma, she would have instantly known that the boy's father was his savior and the best image to use to catch him after scaring him with his worst fear, the giant cockroach.

  But the Machine ... failed?

  "I don't like this," she says aloud.

  "I don't either," the old mother agrees vacuously.

  She scowls at her and catches her reflection in the rearview mirror-a teenage boy at odds with his mother. And something else. A zit! Right between her eyes. Great! Just what she needs. The reflection melts and rehardens into the fictitious face of the handsome TrevorFlint, Pioneer.

  "You know, you're starting to get on my nerves," Trevor says to the old mother.