Death and Candy

by David Maloney

  Please be open.

  I grabbed the knob and yanked, and a torrent of fresh air and sunlight poured into the cavern. I grabbed Ellen’s arm and half-dragged her through the open door before collapsing exhausted on the ground.

  “We made it,” I gasped. My chest was heaving as I lay on my back and coughed up all the dust from the cavern air.

  “Yeah.” Ellen was bright red with exhaustion, her arms and legs covered in scratch marks, her legs scored by slash marks from my knife. I don’t imagine I looked much better.

  “What the fuck was that?” I said breathlessly, getting up.

  Ellen shook her head.

  “I don’t know… but let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  I helped Ellen to her feet, and we both stood there panting and coughing with our hands on our knees. Ellen coughed something up into her hand.

  “Danny?” she said, showing it to me.

  It was a small leaf. I watched her face as little green tendrils began to spread out and coil around underneath her skin, and I realized with horror that it hadn’t been dust we were breathing in.

  It had been spores.

  9

  Mr. Crow

  I used to look out the rusted iron bars of my window and dream about being a bird.

  The chain that shackled me to my bed was just long enough to reach the windowsill, and so every night after my father would visit my room I would lie awake and wait for the first rays of light to creep over the horizon, then walk over to my window to listen to the morning’s first few notes of birdsong.

  Their melodies were so beautiful, I knew that they must have been singing about places far away and wonderful, about sailing on the wind through endless blue skies, looking down at the treetops that seemed so small from so high up.

  Then, one morning as I lay in bed, something impossible happened. I had fallen asleep the night before, and would have missed my morning birdsong but for a tapping on my window. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and sat up to see a crow sitting outside on the sill, tapping my window with his beak.

  I crept over to the window and smiled at the bird.

  “Hello, Mr. Crow,” I said.

  “Hello little girl,” said the crow.

  I stood there awkwardly for a moment, not knowing what to say. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I forced myself to speak.

  “You know how to talk?” I said.

  “All birds know how to talk,” he replied. “It’s just that not all humans know how to listen.”

  I pushed my window open a crack until it hit against the bars. The bird cocked its head in curiosity.

  “Why are you in a cage?” it asked.

  “I think it’s my destiny,” I said. “It’s always been this way.”

  “You look quite thin,” replied the crow. “Would you like something to eat?”

  My stomach gave a weak growl.

  “Yes,” I said. “That would be wonderful.”

  Without another word the crow took flight. A few minutes later he returned with a small branch of figs. The crow watched me as I greedily devoured the fruit. After I had finished he stared at me for a moment before speaking again.

  “I didn’t know they put people in cages,” he said. “Do you think they mistook you for a bird?”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “I guess it’s possible,” I said.

  We whiled away the rest of that day talking. The crow told me all about what it was like to fly, how there was no better feeling in the world. He told me about the faraway lands he had visited when he was a young bird and could still make the journey north with the changing of the seasons. Finally, evening came and the crow said that he had to go. The next morning he was back, however, with two more branches of figs.

  I thanked him for his generosity, and we talked another day away. That day he even sang me a song. He didn’t have a very good voice, but I thought his song was beautiful anyway.

  We passed the entire fall that way, and the bird’s visits became the only bright spot in my life. He brought me not only figs, but cherries and walnuts too—anything small enough for him to carry.

  Soon, however, winter came, and with it the frosts that destroyed the figs and cherries that the crow had used to bring me. His gifts became fewer and fewer, and I could tell from the strain in his voice that he was flying farther and farther away to get them.

  One morning, when the first snows of winter had fallen, the crow asked me a question.

  “What would you do to leave this place?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.

  I thought for a moment, but I wasn’t sure how to answer. Finally, I told the truth.

  “I would do anything to leave this place,” I said. “Anything at all.”

  The crow solemnly nodded and said, “The frost isn’t the only thing that winter brings.”

  He flapped his wings once and jumped from the windowsill, and I didn’t see him for three days. Every morning I would still listen to the birdsong, but it sounded forlorn and empty without my friend there to listen with me.

  The morning after the third day my crow friend returned. It was so beautiful that day; the sun had come out from behind the clouds to melt the snow—one of the last green days before winter came in earnest. As the shadow passed over the valley in which we lived, I first mistook it for a storm cloud, but then I heard the sound. It was loud enough rattle the walls and windows, but it wasn’t thunder—it was birds.

  Thousands upon thousands of them descended on our house. A whirling storm of beating wings and shrieking caws, they crashed into the walls and windows, pecking at them with wild ferocity. The house shook under their assault, and their calls were so loud that I didn’t even hear the windows breaking.

  They were not so loud, however, that I could not hear my father scream. It was over in a matter of minutes, and the key to my shackles slipped under the door. I rushed over and picked it up with trembling hands, sliding it into the metal cuff around my ankle and turning it.

  The cuff came loose with a heavy click, and for the first time I was free.

  The key to my bedroom door slipped under the jamb as well, and I pushed my way into the rest of the house. The place had been all but destroyed. There was splintered wood and broken glass everywhere, and in the center of the living room was what remained of my father—a pile of bloodstained feathers.

  The birds had all flown off, but Mr. Crow sat on top of the living room fireplace, regarding me with a curious look.

  “Now you can fly free, little girl,” he said. “No more cages for you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Crow,” I said. “Will you come with me?”

  Mr. Crow shook his head.

  “I am an old bird,” he said. “And my journey is coming to a close. I’m afraid that I would be poor company for a young, lively thing like you.”

  Mr. Crow flapped his wings and took flight, and I never saw him again. As I stepped out of the front door my bare feet touched the grass for the very first time, and I could smell the flowers on the breeze as it drifted over me.

  At that moment, though my feet were firmly on the ground, my heart took flight and soared through endless blue sky, far above the world that I had left behind.

  I still wake up every morning to hear the birds sing, and when the first few notes break the silence of the early dawn, I think of Mr. Crow and smile.

  10

  The Blue-Eyed Painting

  “So… what are we doing here?”

  “We’re uh… appreciating art.”

  “How do you appreciate art?”

  “I think you just stand there and look at it.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “Danny we’re staring at a nine-foot painting of a triangle. No offense, but even your hipster girlfriend knew this was bullshit. Which is why she crapped out of going and you dragged me along.”

  I blew air at my bangs from the bottom of my mouth.

 
“Alright,” I said. “Fuck it, let’s go get drunk.”

  Jason grinned, and we started walking towards the exit.

  “That’s more like it. You know that beard makes you look like a douchebag?”

  “I think it looks manly. And Ellen likes it.”

  “Manly? Danny you look like the kind of guy who owns a special little comb for picking semen out of his beard.”

  “How long did it take you to come up with that one?”

  “About at long as it took you to…whoa, hold on. Look at this one.”

  Jason had stopped in front of a small painting of a face.

  “Shit, yeah.”

  The painting was of the bust of a woman, and looked like something out of the Renaissance. It was strangely out of place in the modernist gallery around us.

  “Look at her eyes, Danny. Holy shit, I’m doing it. I’m appreciating art.”

  The woman’s eyes were sky blue, and they bore a sort of dreamy expression which only seemed to enhance the strangeness of her beauty.

  “It gives me the creeps,” I said.

  “It looks like she’s naked,” said Jason. “Do you think they’ve got a painting of the rest of her?”

  “Seriously, it’s creeping me out. Let’s go.”

  But as we turned around to go we were approached by a woman with wire rimmed glasses and hair pulled back so tight that her forehead reflected the gallery lights.

  “Do you like this one?” she asked.

  “I, uh. Yeah, my friend likes it.”

  Jason was too busy ogling the painting to respond.

  “Who painted it?” I asked.

  “An unknown Renaissance artist. It was donated to the gallery and we display it here to demonstrate the contrast between modern and traditional forms of art.”

  “Is it for sale?” Jason asked.

  “You seem really taken with it,” the woman said with a smile. “Go on and take it. Maybe it can inspire a love of art in you.”

  “Wait, are you serious?” I asked.

  Jason shrugged and lifted the painting off the wall.

  “Come on, sexy. You’re coming with me.”

  ***

  “I can’t believe you brought a painting to a bar.”

  “It’s called peacocking, Danny.”

  “What-ing?”

  “It’s when you bring something flashy to a bar to attract the attention of women.”

  “Sounds like a good idea. You want the girls to think you’re some kind of psycho, right?”

  “Shit, that could work. Maybe I can hook up with one of those girls that writes letters to serial killers in prison. Besides, I wanted to look at it some more. I’ve always had a thing for green eyes.”

  “Are you drunk already? She’s got blue eyes, dipshit.”

  “Dude get your vision checked. This must be why you’re such a shitty driver. You think all the traffic lights are blue.”

  I was about to tell Jason what a dumbass he was when a girl walked up to us and interrupted.

  “Cool painting,” she said.

  “It’s mine.” Jason puffed out his chest, perhaps taking the word ‘peacocking’ a little too literally.

  “I really like the expression in her eyes,” the girl went on. “So vulnerable, it’s like she’s really baring her soul.”

  “Yeah,” Jason eagerly agreed. “But there’s something more, like a fierceness. It’s beautiful.”

  The girl looked at the painting quizzically.

  “I don’t see it,” she said.

  Jason and the girl went on talking while I drained my whisky and started texting Ellen that Jason had met a girl and was ignoring me again. He was always like this around pretty girls. He said he fell in love at least twice a day. Eventually they went off to her apartment and I went home to our dorm.

  ***

  I woke up on the couch the next morning with a splitting headache. Jason must have gotten home last night sometime after I passed out, because his coat was on the rack. As I became more aware of my surroundings I noticed a powerful burning smell. I jumped up and saw smoke billowing out from the oven.

  “Jason, you fucking idiot,” I grumbled.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d stuck a pizza in the oven and then passed out before it was done. I switched off the oven and went to pound on Jason’s door.

  “Hey, wake up numbnuts. You nearly burned us alive again last night.”

  No answer.

  “What a lazy fucker.”

  I turned the knob and saw that he was still in bed, but obviously awake.

  “Hey idiot,” I said.

  “Get up and clean the—” but the words died in my throat.

  As I got closer I saw the black pool of blood that had spilled from his mouth. His eyes were wide open and still.

  “Shit!”

  I ran over and shook him, but he was already ice cold. When the ambulance got there they took him away in a bag. They asked me if I knew what had happened but I couldn’t answer. I just kept going over the same thing in my mind. Jason had brown eyes, I was sure of it. But when I found him lying there, in a pool of his own blood, his eyes had been green.

  ***

  The next week was a blur for me. I numbly floated through the days. People’s consolations and pitying looks were just mundane platitudes that could not reach me. The university held a memorial service for Jason. They printed out a big version of the picture from his student ID and placed it next to the arts building so people could come and pay their respects. I went the long way around the building to avoid seeing it. I didn’t want to be reminded of what had happened. But I couldn’t hide from it forever—after class on Friday there was an urgent knock on my door, and when I opened it Ellen was standing there looking upset.

  “I tried calling you,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  I shrugged.

  “I’m surviving I guess.”

  “Have you…” Ellen seemed nervous about something. “Have you been by the arts building?”

  “Not recently, why?”

  “I, uh… I don’t want to upset you. But I figured it had best come from me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Ellen pulled up a picture on her phone and handed it to me.

  “What the fuck?”

  It was Jason’s picture by the arts building. But someone had gouged out the eyes and spray painted a big red X over his face.

  “Who the fuck would do something like this?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. The university police are looking into it.”

  I saw red. A thought had been nagging at the back of my mind for days now. I grabbed my keys off the hook and marched out to the parking lot.

  “Where are you going?” I heard Ellen calling after me.

  “I’m going back to that fucking art gallery.”

  I’m not sure what I expected to find. An answer, I guess. Some sort of closure. But I definitely didn’t expect to find what I did. Hanging right there in the very same spot was the painting of the blue-eyed woman. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I just stood there staring at it.

  “Do you like this one?”

  I turned to see who had spoken. It was the same woman that had given Jason the painting.

  “Oh,” she said. “You’re back.”

  “Where did you get this?” I sputtered.

  The gallery owner stroked the painting’s cheek.

  “She always seems to find her way back home,” she said. “I think she misses her spot on the wall.”

  I felt something in me break; my emotional numbness was replaced by a flood of anger. I grabbed the woman’s collar and yanked her towards me.

  “I know it was you,” I said, shaking her. “I know what you did.”

  “Are you going to hurt me?” she asked. Her eyes moved over to the painting, and I followed them. The painting’s eyes had changed. They were now a brilliant shade of green. I gasped and let go of her collar, and watched as the eyes slowly chan
ged back to blue. The gallery owner straightened her shirt.

  “I don’t decide who she goes home with,” she said softly. “She does.”

  I started to back away slowly, and the woman watched me. I could have sworn the painting was watching me too as I turned around and ran.

  ***

  When I got home Ellen was waiting for me, worry written all over her face.

  “Danny, what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.” I said breathlessly. “But I know who killed Jason.”

  “You do?”

  “It was that woman,” I said. “The one that works at that art gallery.”

  “What? Why the hell would some strange woman kill Jason?”

  “Because she’s crazy. She’s some kind of witch, Ellen.”

  Ellen frowned.

  “Are you feeling ok?” She asked. “Jason died in bed, Danny. Why do you think he was murdered?”

  “I just…” I was breathing heavily. “You didn’t see it… The painting… “I trailed off. Even I could hear how crazy the words sounded as they came out of my mouth. I knew what I had seen, but I also knew no one else would believe me.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Sorry, I’m just a little upset. Never mind.”

  “Let’s just relax for a while. Do you wanna watch a movie?”

  I agreed more for Ellen’s sake than my own. After all, I was sure I’d just frightened her. We set up the movie and Ellen went off to the bathroom like she always did at the start of movies. While she was inside I saw a text message from her friend Brittany pop up on her phone. Ellen didn’t mind when I read her messages, so grabbed the phone and swiped it open. All the message said was, “have u told him about Jason yet?”

  I heard the toilet flush and the faucet go on and then Ellen walked back and plopped down next to me.

  “What is this?” I held the phone up to her face.

  “It’s nothing, Danny. Why don’t we talk about it when you’re feeling better?”

  “No. Something is going on and I want to know what the fuck it is.”