It had been a very long time since I had answered that question honestly.
Despite my protests, that weekend I met Lucy. She was a pleasant girl, and pretty despite a few scars. Most children are pure-hearted and blemish-free, so I was surprised to see the scars, but they didn’t bother me.
The sleepover came and went without event, the only weird part being when Mr. Avery made us sit on his lap so he could read us a story.
The weekend sleepovers continued after that, and although I liked Lucy a lot, I always felt a bit uneasy at her house. At first it was just the walking corpse of her father that set me on edge, but soon I noticed that every time I visited Lucy would have at least one more scar. The more time passed, the more she began to resemble her dad, her flesh slowly becoming a ragged patchwork of scars and bruises, her eyes seething with quiet rage that hid beneath a placid exterior.
The day that things came to a head was just a normal sleep over like any other, until Lucy’s father came home, clothes askew and smelling like the bottle of rubbing alcohol my mother kept under the kitchen sink. He barged into Lucy’s room, interrupting our game of truth-or-dare and seizing Lucy by the arm, bending down to whisper something in her ear.
As Lucy listened her eyes widened to the size of milk saucers, and a terrified look stole over the patchwork of scars that made up her face.
“Y-you can’t…” she mumbled. “Annie’s here…”
Mr. Avery’s grip tightened around his daughter’s arm until his knuckles were white, and the whispering grew into a hiss. Her shoulders slumped, and her whole body seemed to go limp with resignation. And then, something terrible happened.
As Mr. Avery whispered in his daughter’s ear, the skin of her face began to stretch, pulling apart down the middle like cloth tearing at the seams, black pus slowly oozing down from the wound. A new scar was being formed, right before my very eyes.
I knew I couldn’t just stand by and watch, and so I screamed the first thing that popped into my head.
“I know what you are!”
The words sounded stupid coming out of my mouth, but Mr. Avery’s jaw dropped a bit, and his grip around Lucy’s arm slackened.
“You…what?” he said, seemingly dumbfounded that a stranger’s child had dared to question his authority in his own house.
“I know what you are,” I said. “You’re a monster. And you’re hurting her. I won’t let you do it anymore.”
Mr. Avery let go of Lucy’s arm and stood up straight as a rail. His surprise had turned to anger, and his eyes narrowed into slits.
“I will not have my parenting questioned by a child,” he said through clenched teeth. “You get out of my house right now, and don’t you ever come back.”
I wanted to hit him. I wanted to grab Lucy by the arm and run away with her, but the sight of that disfigured monster rooted my feet to the ground. And then, like a coward, I turned tail and ran.
I got grounded for two weeks for my disrespect to Lucy’s father, and the next time I saw Lucy around the neighborhood she was covered in so many scars that she was completely unrecognizable. I only knew it was her by her clothes and her ragged denim backpack with pink marker drawings of cats all over it.
As I saw Lucy becoming more and more disfigured, I began to grow angry. That man had taken my friend from me, he had taken away her happiness and nobody around me seemed to care. The more I thought about it the more hateful I grew, and before long ugly red scars began to rip their way through my own face.
I knew I couldn’t let him win. I couldn’t let him get away with whatever he was doing to hurt my friend.
So, I hatched a plan.
One day when my parents were working late I snuck into my dad’s closet and opened his safe. I knew the combination was my parent’s anniversary. Inside I found what I was looking for: my father’s antique Colt .45 revolver and a cardboard box of ammo. I loaded the gun and wrapped it up in grocery bags so nobody would see what it was. Then I walked across the street to Lucy’s house.
I rang the doorbell and as I stood on the porch a panicked thought suddenly rushed through my head—what if someone else opened the door? What would I do? What would I say?
My heartbeat pounded in my ears as I heard footsteps approach from the other side. The knob turned, my mouth went dry, and the gun seemed to grow heavier in my grip.
The door opened and there stood Mr. Avery, mouth slightly agape.
His expression quickly turned to anger. “I thought I told you that you weren’t—”
BANG
The gunshot shattered the peaceful air of the quiet suburban neighborhood, and Mr. Avery stumbled back, clutching his bleeding stomach.
I hit the ground as the gun kicked me back, ears ringing from the shot. I struggled back to my feet as the world span and blood rushed into my head.
BANG
The air shattered again, and Mr. Avery fell down. He didn’t get back up. The ground beneath me span so fast I felt as if I would fly off the earth. And then, I felt myself falling, and all I saw was darkness.
I woke up in the hospital two weeks later. The doctors said I’d hit my head on the pavement when the gun kicked back, and slipped into a coma when I got to the hospital. In the two weeks that I was out, girls in the neighborhood had come out about horrible things that had happened at Mr. Avery’s sleepovers.
The adults assumed he’d done the same to me, and they told me that the DA had declined to press charges against me, even as a juvenile.
To this day, I still know that what I did that day wasn’t justice. But I also know something else.
I know that every time I saw Lucy after that, she had at least one less scar. And that’s good enough for me.
26
Slaughter in the Park
A girl alone on a bench—a strange sight at two A.M.
It piqued my curiosity, and so I went and sat down beside her.
“It’s not often you see a pretty girl alone so late at night,” I said.
“Is that what I am?” she asked. “A pretty girl?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I think so, anyway.”
“Thank you,” she said. “He thought so too.”
“Who is that?” I asked.
The woman didn’t answer. A cool breeze rustled through the trees behind us, carrying with it the scent of a coming nighttime rain.
“You’d better get inside,” I said. “You can smell the rain on the air.”
“I like the rain,” she said. “It makes me feel at peace.”
I paused for a moment and scanned the park. The moonlight shone through the trees on empty patches of grass. No one else was here.
“Did you have a fight with your boyfriend?” I asked. “Is that why you’re out here all alone?”
“Not with my boyfriend, no,” she replied.
“So you had a fight with somebody then,” I said.
“In a manner of speaking yes,” she replied. “And in another manner of speaking, no.”
“I don’t get what you mean.”
For the first time the woman turned to me, and I noticed there was something off about her eyes, a peculiar glassed-over quality.
“Is it a fight when you slaughter an animal?” she said.
At this I felt a cold prickling up the back of my neck, and I had the distinct sense that somebody was behind me, watching. I wanted to turn around, but I dared not tear my eyes away from the woman. So instead I swallowed hard and answered.
“No,” I replied. “It’s not a fight.”
“Then it wasn’t a fight I had,” she said. “It was a slaughter.”
She looked up to the moon and let out a heavy sigh.
“It’s almost funny,” she said. “That in the span of a few short seconds a life can be snuffed out, forever.”
My hands gripped painfully tight against the wood of the bench as I tried to remain calm.
“I think I’d better go now,” I said, making a motion to rise.
“No,” th
e woman said, surprisingly forcefully. “You can go in a moment. But for now you have to stay.”
At that very moment I heard footsteps coming from behind, crushing the dead fall leaves as they approached.
“Don’t turn around,” said the woman. “You’ll ruin everything.”
The footsteps continued to approach, growing steadily closer.
“It’s almost time,” the woman whispered.
The steps were right behind us now, and I heard the sound of a gun being cocked behind my head. Paralyzed with fear, I closed my eyes and said my prayers. Suddenly there was a scream, and I could move again.
I leapt up from the bench and turned around to see something impossible. A man was sprawled on the ground, a gun inches away from his outstretched fingers. The woman dug her fingernails into the man’s throat and ripped it out, tossing his windpipe aside like garbage before dissolving into nothing, like an ephemeral morning mist chased off by the day’s first hint of wind.
When the police questioned me that night, I told them I had found the man like that. My lawyer got me out of jail in a few days, and later on informed me that they police declined to pursue an investigation into me when the ballistics run on the man’s gun matched seventeen open murders in the city.
His last victim had been a nineteen-year-old girl named Annabelle. I saw her picture when the news broke about the man’s murder. Chills ran down my spine. I’d seen that woman before, on a park bench at two in the morning.
27
The Box
It seemed like just an ordinary box.
The wood was old and weathered, the fastenings were heavy brass, and the lid was inlaid with an ornate silver symbol a bit like a sickle.
My father had willed it to me after the state executed him for murder. He left no explanation or instructions, only the small, mysterious wooden box.
At first, I considered tossing it into the river. The last thing I wanted was a reminder of the man that had abandoned his son in favor of a life of violence.
But, curiosity won out, and I decided I might as well look inside. Opening the box, however, was easier said than done. Attempts to pry open the latches with my hands yielded only abraded fingers and broken nails.
Screwdrivers were snapped, hammers were shattered, and drill motors were burnt out. Yet the contents of the box remained out of reach, encased in a wooden tomb determined not to yield its secrets.
Eventually I gave up. I told myself that whatever was inside was not worth the effort, and I did my best to forget about it. But the box would not allow me to forget so easily, and, one night while I was sleeping, it opened of its own accord.
I awoke to an eerie silver luminescence that filled my bedroom. A deep sense of pervasive cold chilled the surroundings to absolute stillness. As I sat up in my bed I was overwhelmed by a sense of unfamiliarity, as if I had been transported somewhere that looked very much like my bedroom, but was home to someone, or something else.
The silver light emanated from beneath my closet door, lending a sense of unreality to everything that it bathed in its pallid sheen; casting odd shadows that seemed to creep and move in unnatural ways.
I could feel myself standing up, though I had not willed myself to do so, and slowly, quietly, I crept towards the closet. My fingertips brushed the knob, recoiling for a moment from the penetrating cold. Then resolutely, firmly, I grasped it, and pulled the door open to reveal the box.
The hinges had sprung wide open. The light that spilled forth was piercing and intense. The light burned my eyes, yet I could not tear my gaze away. I could feel myself falling slowly forward into an abyss of silver light that enveloped my horizon and became my entire being.
Just before it swallowed me, the box snapped shut, and I found myself on the floor, my sweat-drenched cheek pressed tight against the cold rough wood of the lid.
I pushed myself back to my feet. The eerie silver light was gone, and my room seemed once again my own. Yet something was still not right. The cheek that had touched the box, was throbbing with a burning pain. I wandered into the bathroom and flipped on the light, and gasped at the reflection staring back at me from the mirror.
The symbol on top of the box was burned into my cheek. I reached up to touch it, but as I did so it faded.
My experience with the box changed me. I can feel a malevolent presence inside, an unwelcome guest inside my mind.
I find myself missing time, awaking in strange locales with blood splattered on my clothing. Animals started going missing in my neighborhood. After that, it was people.
And yesterday, I received from my lawyer, asking for clarification on the amendment I had made to my will.
He wondered why the only thing I wanted to leave my son when I died was an antique wooden box.
28
Handles
The first time I saw one of the handles I thought I was dreaming. My mother had just woken me up for school, and when she turned to leave the room I saw a big brass handle sticking out of the back of her head. The hair around it was matted with blood from where it plunged into her skin, and it was slowly and steadily revolving like one of those old-fashioned wind-up toys.
Before I could process what I’d seen, my little sister ran into my room screaming “Wake up lazy!” and started spinning around in circles as she jumped on my bed. She had a handle too, a small silver one that poked through her dark hair, spinning so fast that it was nearly just a silvery blur flicking little drops of blood around as it spun.
When I went to school that day I saw that everybody had a handle, some silver, some brass, some copper and some even gold. Most of the students had small silver ones like my sister, spinning so fast you could hardly see them, and most of the adults had handles that spun slowly steadily like my mother’s. The old history teacher Mr. Binns had a big copper handle that was creaking so slowly it looked like it could stop at any moment.
Being young and stupid, I decided to see what would happen if I touched one. I figured Mr. Binns would be the safest choice. After class I walked up behind him and touched it with my index finger. As soon as my finger brushed the cold metal, Mr. Binns let out a loud gasp and collapsed like wet paper. His handle had stopped and fallen out of the back of his head. Black smoke billowed from the hole it had left behind.
There was shouting, panic; chaos. Someone called an ambulance and the paramedics pronounced him dead on arrival. They later said that it was a brain aneurysm, and that he had died instantly. But I felt responsible, whether it had been my fault or not, and I resolved never to touch another handle again.
Unfortunately, I would make a mistake. I allowed myself to go out on a few dates with a girl from my math class named Lily, and as time went on, I knew it was unavoidable that at some point I would accidentally touch her handle. I told myself there was no reason to worry, over and over again until I started to believe it. After all, I couldn’t be totally sure that it was really me who’d caused Mr. Binns’s death. He had been old. Perhaps it had only been a coincidence.
One night, when my parents were out on the town, I invited Lily over. While we were kissing on the couch my hands strayed just a little too far. I’d no sooner felt the metal than she had collapsed on top of me.
Her breathing went from hot and fast, to wheezing gasps, to nothing at all in the span of a few seconds; I panicked and did the first thing that came to mind—I seized her handle in my hands and began cranking it back with all my might. When I couldn’t force it back anymore I let go and it started spinning again, but slowly. Her breath came back to her, but she never woke up again. She died two days later, and when I tried to crank her handle up again, it just came off in my hands, and black smoke poured out the back of her head.
I took her death a lot harder than Mr. Binns’s. I became a shut-in; swore that I’d never accidentally touch anyone else’s handle again. And that’s how I’ve been living ever since. It’s not easy, but I get by. I work from home, and I get supplemental disability checks from the go
vernment. My existence is tolerable monotony.
Only, yesterday, I noticed something strange. Overnight my own handle had gone from one that was small, fast, and silver, to a large copper one that spun so slowly it was barely moving.
I never knew that facing death would hit me so hard. After all, my entire life has been spent in loneliness and misery. Yet there’s something about the imminent finality of total nothingness that makes you want to drink in every detail around you, every sight; every sound; every touch. And so I decided to break my rule, and to set out to enjoy my last few days on Earth. But I have found no pleasure in outside life, only horror.
Every person I’ve seen since leaving the house has the same big, copper handle as mine. And they’re all spinning in sync, so slowly they could stop at any moment.
29
A is for Addiction
The day I met Annie was the day fate threw me under the bus.
I first saw her standing outside of a head shop in the freezing rain. She looked as if she’d once been pretty, but the skin of her face had hollowed and shrunken around the bones into the unmistakable mask of a habitual drug user. I stood under the overhang of the shop and held my hand out, letting a few drops of the icy rain splatter across my palm.
“If you just stay outside in the rain you’re gonna get pneumonis,” I said.
The movement of her lips was barely perceptible in the neon red glow of the shop’s signs as she responded, “That’s the plan.”
“There are quicker ways to kill yourself,” I said.
“I don’t want to kill myself,” she replied. “I just want to go to the hospital.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Pain meds.”
“You get pain meds for pneumonia?”
“Codeine cough syrup if I’m coughing blood,” she said. “Maybe better if I’m lucky enough to deflate a lung.”
I handed her a cigarette.
“That should help you get pneumonia,” I said.
Death and Candy Page 9