"Doesn't everybody?"
"Yeah, but most not so bad as you. Worst case I seen in forty years." Père leaned over the arm of his wheelchair, peering closely, the teal scarf overflowing from his lap. Parks was about to ask who else had them this bad, but Père beat him to it. "A traveling preacher fella come through town at the time, in middle of July, set up his tent and had an all-night sing. I could hardly see him 'cause'a all the ghosts he carried wrapped around him. He had a bowed back from carrying them for so long. They nearly snapped him in two. He was dead by that winter."
"I bear up," Parks said.
"Your mama's behind you."
"I know."
"I can't really see her face, but it's her, all right, that much is clear. Aunt Tilly, she's holding your left hand, and Baby Sis Claudine gripping your right. She was my youngest cousin on my Pa's side, died when she was five. She always grabbin' on somebody. Those hands hurt you some tonight, don't they?"
"Yes."
"You should visit all their graves. They might loosen up a touch then."
Parks had thought about it before, but he was scared that if he showed up at the cemetery, they might wind up tightening their grip even more. He never should have come back. Should've stayed in L.A. and just had the lawyers mail the papers. He sipped the moon and checked his watch. It wasn't even nine o'clock yet, and there wasn't a sound in the house except the soft murmurs of the TV. Some sitcom where families laughed together and helped each other through the tough times.
"You should go before you pass out," said Père. "You ain't used to that kind of drinking no more. You sleep past five AM and Floyd might just tie you to the bed and beat hell out of you."
"You're right." Parks was already feeling the effects, and figured it would be wiser to grab a whore at Louie's and pay her for the night, get up early to catch the eight AM bus. He took out his wallet and figured he had just enough. Mama wouldn't follow him in there. "Sorry about all this, Gramp."
"Don't be. We all got our loads and hardships. You'll either make it right later on, or you won't."
"I will."
"Maybe so. Probably be better for you in the end if you did."
There was nothing left to say to that. Parks got his jacket back on, picked up his satchel, sensed the potential and promise of the script inside, took one last look around the place, and flipped open the busted screen door.
There was a sudden blur of silver motion in front of him–he thought for an instant that his mother had taken shape, come in to hug him goodbye one last time–and then something shattered his right eye.
The pain was so intense he couldn't even scream for a few seconds, and found himself on his knees gasping and writhing against the wall. As he trembled and drew in a deep breath to shriek, he felt a wad of cotton being thrust into his mouth, a thick band of tape sealing against his lips. They used twine on his wrists.
It happened so fast, with the same kind of often-practiced actions as they'd shown in the kitchen. Some Brooms had scissors in hand, others held ten penny nails or wire. He couldn't make them all out but there seemed to be more kids now than he'd thought. So many of them that they crowded the room.
They'd brought Floyd's toolbox inside.
In agony, Parks turned his head aside. He saw Père Hull's body jittering and contorted in his wheelchair, the crippled left foot thrust straight out, the man's skinny arms pulled unnaturally far behind him as he convulsed. The crocheting needles quivered in his flesh, stuck somewhere in his face, through the tongue or in his ears. Or somewhere else. The Brooms covered the old man and were carefully handing each other tools, using them on Père in ways Parks couldn't quite distinguish, then replacing each back in the box, dripping.
As Parks thrashed again he realized a screwdriver had blinded him and was still jutting out of his head. Jesus, he thought, it must be wedged into my brain. How else would it not fall out? If he wasn't crazy before he'd have to be now.
The television was still on, low, the laugh track proceeding on and on with tinny unreal hilarity, and Parks wanted to scream at the kids to turn it up, it's not as bad if you drown the crows out with some chatter and laughter and noise.
But Myrtle got migraines.
He struggled but his hands still hurt. He ought to be able to break free of a knotted piece of twine but Baby Sis Claudine and Aunt Tilly were holding on too harshly. They wouldn't let go.
The Brooms paraded before him, the same angelic face and the same primitive soul, until the shortest Broom pressed a cheek to his without a word. The children moved to him now with the tools and scissors and he remembered what the hideous voices used to say to him when he was a boy, how they'd command and beg and beguile, and as the shadder continued to thicken around him they came for his other eye, and he knew this was going to take a good long while.
If you enjoyed this short story, check out the rest of Tom Piccirilli's short story collection:
Futile Efforts
A preview of Tom Piccirilli's dark fantasy novel, Nightjack
one
Are you cured?
They actually ask you that right before you step back into the world. While you're standing there in the corridor, twenty feet from the front door, holding tightly to your little bag of belongings. You've got a change of clothing, five or six prescriptions, the address and phone number of a halfway house. A few items they let you make in shop, what they called the Work Activities Center. Maybe a birdhouse. A pair of gloves that didn't fit.
Pace had an ashtray and a folded-up pair of pajamas that he'd stitched together himself on an old-fashioned sewing machine. It reminded him of the one William Pacella's grandmother had in her bedroom. She used to make clothes for the whole family, had this big sewing basket with two thousand miles of multi-colored threads and yarn. She'd crochet sweaters for him every year for Christmas. Always in the hairnet, wearing black, she'd say, Non strappi questi, mie mani sono vecchio. Don't rip these, my hands are old. Pacella would hug her and hear the click of her poorly-fitted dentures as she pressed her wrinkled lips to his cheek.
Are you cured?
A final test to see if you're really on your toes. Like you might suddenly drop, fling the pajamas aside, and thump your chest with your fists. Cry out, No, I'm still insane, you've found me out, seen through my thin charade, damn your eyes.
But then again, you could never tell, it had probably happened before.
So they escort you back to your room, unfold your pajamas, put the ashtray back on the nightstand, and get your slippers ready for your feet again. You step into the lounge area and all the other headcases look at you like the prize screw-up you are. Sort of laughing while they say, You botched the question, didn't you. We practiced and rehearsed but you went and told them the truth, that you were still nuts. The hell's the matter with you?
The other wrong answer was when you told them, Yes, I'm fine. Then they knew you were still fucked.
What they really wanted to hear you say was that you were sick and you'd always be sick, and you knew you'd always be sick but that you'd make an effort to stay stable by taking your medication regularly. That you'd attend the outpatient group therapy sessions, keep in touch, and if you had any serious troubles along the way, you'd check yourself right back in for a short-term observation period.
So Pace told them that.
He meant it, too, and thanked them for all they'd done. Humbly grinning at the nurses, the guards, the other staffers of Garden Falls Psychiatric Facility. All of them moving off down the hallways, giving him the stink eye that said, Whatever happens, just don't come back here. We have enough trouble.
All right, so he was almost back on the street. He looked left and right down the corridor once more, feeling a little lost. He was alone now. It was a condition he didn't like and couldn't seem to get used to.
He started for the front door and stopped. He was supposed to wait here for somebody. For a minute he couldn't remember who, and then—as she stepped from her office and came at him—he did.
His shrink, the assistant Chief of Staff, Dr. Maureen Brandt, was at his side, moving in sync with him as they walked to the exit, shoulder to shoulder.
Dr. Maureen Brandt. The name didn't exactly slide off the tongue. He'd worked it around in his mouth for almost two years now. She often frowned when he said her name because he usually rested on it an extra second, as if he had to remember it all over again. She'd jot notes on her pad and look up at him without raising her chin, her dark gaze burrowing into his head. It wasn't exactly an unpleasant feeling.
"How are you doing, Will?" she asked.
All the nutjobs on the ward always said fine because they didn't have the wit to say anything else. The candor had been burned out of them with primal scream therapy. Three in the morning and these idiots are practicing their prehistoric shrieks, regressing back to cavemen. Hauling ass down the hallways trying to escape the mastodons and saber-toothed tigers. This was supposed to help them with the issues they had with their parents, the oily uncles who took them into the bathroom. Instead, it just started the whole zoo shrieking.
Pace opened his mouth and the word wasn't his word. The voice wasn't his voice either. It said, almost buoyantly, "Fine."
Dr. Brandt smiled at Pace, the condescension mixed with something else. Fear maybe, or disappointment. Like she missed the man he was before she got her hands on him.
Her face was one of those sculptures that looked too perfect to be real. So beautiful it had a kind of awful magnificence that had enthralled him from the beginning. It didn't have so much to do with her looks as it did with what lurked beneath. A kind of force he connected with even though he couldn't see it and didn't know what it was.
It made him ache. Her prim gait, the angle and curve of her thigh beneath the plaited skirt. The thrust of her breasts under the suit jacket. If her hair was in a bun he'd be living out a porn movie scenario—they hit the music and she pulls the ribbon. The hair comes loose and with a casual flinch the jacket and skirt fall to the floor. Except her hair was never in a bun.
The first time he'd seen her he was just waking up in the hyper-white hospital room, strapped into this funky straitjacket that was tied to stainless steel railings surrounding the bed.
It was supposed to induce calm, revert you to the pre-natal lull of the womb. Give you the feeling that you were weightless, hanging there in mid-air. Like you might wake up unable to move and actually feel good about it. Just turn your chin aside and smile at the three doctors and two burly attendants standing around waiting to pummel the shit out of you if you got out of line.
Dr. Maureen Brandt introducing herself by name while she flicked a fingernail against a syringe, making sure there were no air bubbles. Pace looked down and saw he was completely covered by the straitjacket, even his feet. The only place she could push the plunger was into his neck.
Unless your mother had a significantly fucked-up pregnancy, this was not the pre-natal lull of the womb.
The biggest irony here: He'd voluntarily committed himself.
"Are you sure you're all right, Will?" she asked as they hit the front door. He was back in the present. He had some trouble keeping himself focused on the here and now.
She carried her briefcase with a sort of haughty air, swinging it a little. Five pounds of notes, files, charts, digital video, and transcribed interviews. Two years of his life distilled into the most boring reading anybody would ever have to suffer through. Every third word something you'd have to run to the Psychiatrist's Dictionary to look up. His life, all his many lives, all the many hims, laid out like tacked luna moths.
"Yes," Pace answered. "I'm fine."
It was drizzling. They headed down the cement walkway to the guard station. The guy in the tiny booth perked up when he saw Pace coming. He stood with a hand on his taser, hoping he'd get to yank it and fire some current into an escapee's ass.
Pace wondered if it would affect him, the way he felt. Maybe it would wake him up some.
They entered the booth. Dr. Brandt still had to sign reams of release forms. Every piece of paper saying that Pace was sane, or if he wasn't, she'd take responsibility for it.
Talk about ego.
Smiling like she was thinking, Sure, if this guy goes Ginsu crazy, I'm responsible, you come slap me around for it when someone else winds up dead.
"You want an escort to the train station, Doctor Brandt?" the guard asked.
"That won't be necessary, Ernie."
Thunder murmured. The rain began to pelt down a little harder, in spurts. Ernie glared at Pace because the secret was out. There really was somebody named Ernie who hadn't climbed Kilimanjaro or lived with a banana-head in a basement apartment on Sesame Street.
This was the Ernie you got. The guy glowering like he wanted to beat you to death with a ball-peen hammer. That was all right, it was easy to understand why. Pace's room on the ward was three times bigger than this little booth Ernie practically lived in all year round. Made you wonder who was the lunatic.
While Dr. Brandt went through the paperwork, Ernie pressed a hand to Pace's chest and shoved him out of the booth and into the rain. Pace dropped his bag of belongings at his feet. He heard the ashtray he made in Work Activities break against the cement.
Ernie leaned in close and said, "So, they really messed up this time letting a prick like you go." Then he slapped Pace twice, very hard and fast.
Pace's ears rang. He took another step back and Ernie grabbed him by the collar, pulled him closer, and hissed in his ear, "Listen to this, killer."
"What?"
"If I ever see you again, I'm going to hurt you so badly you'll never walk again. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Ernie," Pace said.
"Do you?" Ernie slapped him again. "Do you got it good?"
"Yes."
"Right, because there's nothing else I'd like better than to—"
Pace blinked and saw Ernie's eyes roll up into his head and blood begin to rim his nostrils. Ernie's sharply angled features fell in on themselves like wet clay drooping. Pace watched as a hand came up and thumbed two small wads of cloth up Ernie's nose.
Pace cocked his head, puzzled. The hand pressed against Ernie's sternum and kept him propped against the side of the booth.
It took another second before he realized he'd just broken Ernie's nose without actually seeing it happen.
Sometimes you were idle even when you were moving—like falling inside a dream. Sometimes you were in motion when you thought yourself immobile, like now. It got confusing.
Pace stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and felt that the lining had been torn out. That's what he'd crumpled and jammed up Ernie's nose.
Ernie started to slump but the hand came back and braced him again.
Dr. Brandt exited the security booth and said, "Thanks, Ernie," without looking too closely at him. She had her head down against the rain. Pace picked up his bag with his pajamas and broken ashtray and stepped in line beside her as they proceeded down the block in the direction of the train station. Ernie slid down the wall.
She said, "Will, is anything wrong?"
"No."
The sound of Ernie hitting the ground and falling over into the mud was muffled by the rising wind. Pace thought, I should be laughing. Why aren't I laughing?
"You're sure?"
"I am."
"Okay then. I don't want to push."
"You're not pushing."
"You have parameters. You have your safety zone. If I'm encroaching, simply inform me."
"You're not encroaching on my safety zones," he said. The fuck are safety zones?
Maybe he wasn't laughing because the rain reminded Pace of Jane, William Pacella's murdered wife. He held his palm out and watched it fill up and spill over. Pacella and his wife had spent a lot of time together in the rain, out east on Long Island, down at the south shore sailing and walking on the beach. He caught a glimpse of the wife's face wreathed in flame, her lips melting off. She was trying to say his name, but the flesh ra
n into her mouth and she had to spit it free.
Another moment passed before Pace noticed he'd stopped and Dr. Brandt had continued walking and was way ahead of him standing at the corner, staring back.
There were always eyes on you, and then they went and wrote on your chart that you were paranoid.
He caught up and said, "Sorry, shoelace was untied."
"Let's go."
They continued on and the subtle tension between them grew thicker. Maybe it was sexual in nature. Perhaps he hated her for what she'd done to him, the things he couldn't fully remember. Worse things than the needle in the neck. His mind seemed to be made of flitting images, clips of a history that warned him not to delve too deep. Funny how your head tried to protect you, to keep you outside your own skull.
Three blocks away, the train station loomed through the gray afternoon. It was so close to the hospital because back in the early forties they used to route thousands of shell-shocked vets to Garden Falls from all across the country. There were plaques and photos all over the hospital showing guys fighting in the Pacific Theater, holding up American flags, getting decorated by Eisenhower.
She was going to hit him with a trick question soon.
She carried an umbrella but hadn't opened it yet. What the hell did that tell you about her? What symbol did you take away from it? That she thought she was dirty and needed to wash herself clean? Water is a birth sign—did she want children? He could imagine what the psych books would say. If it was Pace standing there with the folded umbrella in a downpour, you could bet your disability check the doctors would have something to say about it, happy as hell to see such a display. Like spotting the pervert who keeps forgetting to zip his fly.
She kept talking and he answered by nodding and uhm hmming. She explained to him what would be necessary for him to stay healthy. How often he needed to take his pills, how the halfway house would be run. He would have to be in by seven p.m. every night, before dark. He couldn't drink. The job they'd found him was some kind of factory work in a fish cannery.
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