Death and Candy

by David Maloney

  But Ms. Robbins didn’t pay the dog any mind. She just stood there rattling her keys.

  That’s when Billy Atkins came up with the mission: we’d sneak into Ms. Robbins’s house at night, and get a picture of her coffin.

  “All vampires sleep in a coffin,” Billy had said, “and if we can get a picture of it then our parents will have to believe us.”

  It was sound logic. We drew straws to see who would be the one to sneak into Ms. Robbins’s house while she was out rattling her keys, and, of course, I drew the shortest one.

  The next night while Ms. Robbins was on her lawn I snuck in behind her. It wasn’t hard; she had left the front door wide open. As I stepped over the threshold I noted that the place had an oppressive air to it—it was stiflingly hot and smelled like mothballs. I held my phone clutched tight in my sweaty hand as I scanned the living room, searching for the coffin. There was no sign of it, but then I guess there wouldn’t be.

  My best bet would be to check the bedroom.

  I forced myself down the hall, each footstep feeling as if it weighed a thousand pounds. I pushed the door to the bedroom open and it gave a loud creak. I whipped my head around to see if Ms. Robbins had heard me, but I didn’t hear any footsteps, so I guessed that

  I was safe.

  There was no coffin in the bedroom either. I wondered if it was in the basement.

  I found the entry in the laundry room. The door was old and the paint was peeling. I felt sweat beading up on my forehead as I stared at the door. I couldn’t tell if it was nerves or just the heat.

  I pushed the door open and switched on the flashlight on my phone, but it only lit about halfway down the staircase. I took a hesitant step down, and that’s when I heard the front door close, following by gentle footsteps.

  I couldn’t run—my only chance was to hide. I closed the door to the basement as quietly as I could and started down the steps, but there must have been one missing, because my foot found only air and I tumbled headlong rest of the way down. My phone screen shattered, but the flashlight stayed on.

  I swept the beam of light around the room and it landed on something shiny—a shelf full of glass jars. The jars were filled with a murky green liquid, and each one had something floating in it. As my eyes focused in the dim light, I saw what was inside the glass jars.

  A scream gathered in my throat, but came out as a whimper.

  The whimper was loud enough, however, for Ms. Robbins to hear me.

  The basement door was flung open, and light poured into the room.

  “Who’s there?” Ms. Robbins called out. My head whipped this way and that as I scanned the walls for another exit, but there was only one way out, and Ms. Robbins was standing between me and it.

  She swung a flashlight beam over me, and I was blinded as the light washed out my vision.

  I dropped to my knees.

  “Please,” I said. “Please don’t kill me.”

  I heard a click, and the overhead light of the basement came on. I dared not look to my right, where I knew the jars of human remains were.

  “So you’ve found my children,” Ms. Robbins said, giving me a hard look.

  “I won’t tell anybody,” I said. “I swear.”

  “I’d prefer that you didn’t,” Ms. Robbins replied. “But you can relax, son. You’re not in any danger.”

  She walked over to the jars and sighed as she rested a hand on one of them. She shook her head.

  “These were the only children I ever had,” she said. “but none of them ever made it out alive.”

  I looked at the shelf of jars again, and I realized that they were fetuses, not children. In the dark they had seemed much larger.

  “Come on, boy,” Ms. Robbins said, “have a cup of tea with me and I won’t tell your parents that you snuck in here.”

  Ms. Robbins turned and walked up the stairs without waiting for my response, and, after a moment’s hesitation, I followed her.

  I sat on Ms. Robbins’s old red corduroy couch as she put the kettle on, and a couple minutes later we were both sipping rose petal tea out of delicate china glasses. I noticed that Ms. Robbins’s hand shook as she lifted the cup to her mouth.

  “Ms. Robbins?” I hazarded.

  “Yes, boy?”

  “You said those were your children?”

  Ms. Robbins shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “How come they came out like that? All twisted up and…”

  “Deformed?” she finished for me.

  My face flushed red, and she sighed.

  “Are your parents good to you, boy?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I replied.

  “Well, my father wasn’t good to me and my sisters,” she said. “He hurt us something awful. He messed me up inside, and years later when I wanted to have kids, they all came out like that.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Me too,” she replied.

  I stared into my teacup for a few minutes, before speaking up again.

  “Ms. Robbins?” I said.

  “Yes, boy?”

  “You said you had sisters?”

  “Yes,” she said, frowning. “I had three. Now I’ve got one.”

  “How come she never visits you?” I asked.

  Ms. Robbins shook her head.

  “I shouldn’t tell you any of this,” she said. “but I guess if you ask an old woman like me a question they’ll tell you their whole life story. The world forgets about us old people, boy, so when someone wants to talk to us we can’t shut up.”

  She took another shaky-handed sip of her tea and continued.

  “This is the house I grew up in,” she said. “All of my sisters moved away and lived their lives, but I could never manage leave this place. Back when I was a girl, they didn’t have a name for that. Now they call it agoraphobia. Do you know what that is, boy?”

  I shook my head.

  “It means I can’t go outside,” she said. “Too much open space, too much noise and too many people—it’s suffocating to me. I can make it as far as the lawn some nights, but then the daylight comes and the world opens up, and I’ve got to come back inside.”

  “But you’ve been going outside every single night,” I said. “I’ve seen you.”

  “So I have,” she replied.

  She stared into her tea with a troubled look on her face.

  “My sister is dying,” she said. “They say she’s still got a few months left, but it’s my last chance to see her before she goes.”

  “Why do you rattle your keys?”

  “They’re my car keys,” she said. “And anything I hold these days rattles. But I’m fooling myself,” she went on. “I haven’t driven that car in over ten years. Even if I could make it there it probably wouldn’t start.”

  “Huh,” I said. “We just thought you were a vampire.”

  Ms. Robbins snorted in her tea.

  “You what?” she said.

  “Well, you only ever come out at night, and Billy said that meant that you were a vampire.”

  To my surprise, Ms. Robbins began to laugh.

  “I suppose that makes more sense than someone being afraid of the outside,” she said.

  “Well sure,” I replied. “Everybody’s heard of vampires, but I don’t think anybody knows what gorophobia is.”

  “Agorophobia,” Ms. Robbins said, a soft smile softening her face.

  “Right,” I replied. “But Ms. Robbins?”

  “Yes?”

  “How can anybody be afraid of the outside?”

  Her lips creased into a frown.

  “Well,” she said. “if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that living in fear is like standing under an avalanche. If you don’t move out of the way, the snow just keeps piling higher and higher, and eventually you get so deep that you can never dig your way out.”

  There was an awkward pause.

  “It’s a shame yo
u’re not a vampire,” I said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well if you were a vampire you wouldn’t have to be afraid. I don’t thing there’s anything in the outside tougher than a vampire. Billy says that vampires can’t go out in the sunlight, but I figure that they could just wear sunblock.”

  Ms. Robbins smiled.

  “Yes,” she said. “I suppose they could.”

  I went home not long after, but that wasn’t the last time I had tea at Ms. Robbins’s place. Once we knew she wasn’t a vampire, the other kids and I started to stop by sometimes. She would make us rose petal tea with honey in it, and to this day I’ve never had tea that tasted so good.

  The very last time I went to Ms. Robbins’s house she wasn’t there. Instead, there was a note taped to the door that simply read:

  I’ve decided to be a vampire.

  Her car was gone, and our parents said that she had moved out to the mid-west to be with her sister. She died out there a few years after her sister did. I only knew Ms. Robbins for a short time, but I’ve never forgotten her.

  Every time I am too afraid to do something that I really want to do, I remind myself of Ms. Robbins, and how she decided to be a vampire.

  35

  Thinking too Much? You’re Drinking too LIttle

  “Hey Bob, guess what?”

  “Fuck off, Eric, I know that look.”

  “What look?” I said, feigning ignorance.

  Bob’s big stomach blew up, then shrank as he let out a long, world-weary sigh.

  “Okay, get on with it,” he said.

  I grinned despite myself.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ve come up with the perfect nickname for you.”

  Bob took a long drink and wiped his lips.

  “Well, go on then.”

  I raised my hands up and parted them as I spoke, as if I were highlighting the word in the air between us.

  “The seahorse,” I said.

  Bob frowned; scratched at his beard.

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I know about seahorses,” he replied. “Those are the ones where the man gets pregnant. You’re making fun of my stomach. Well you can fuck right off.”

  “No,” I protested, “that’s not it.”

  “Well, then what is it?”

  “You’re a seahorse,” I said. “Because you eat like a horse and drink like a fish.”

  Bob snorted.

  “Ha,” he said. “You’re right. Guess I better live up to my reputation.”

  He tore a big chunk of meat off with his teeth. His jaw muscles worked furiously for a few seconds, before he swallowed the half chewed mouthful and followed it with a long, indulgent drink.

  “Hah, you’re an animal, Bob.”

  “Yeah, I know it,” he said. “But it’s better than being a man.”

  I chuckled, but soon the laugh died out and gave way to the kind of awkward silence that births uncomfortable thoughts. I could tell that Bob felt the mood shift too. Somehow, our conversations always found their way down this unfortunate avenue.

  “Hey Bob?” I said.

  “Not this shit again,” said Bob.

  “Come on,” I said. “I know you think about it too.”

  “I don’t,” said Bob. “No good comes from that kind of thinking.”

  “I know that,” I said. “But… don’t you ever get tired of it?”

  “Of course I do,” said Bob, “but what’s the alternative?”

  He formed his fingers in the shape of a gun, and pressed them to his temple.

  “Kaboom,” he said. “Dead. Now have a drink and shut up.”

  I shook my head.

  “I’m not drinking tonight,” I said. “And you make fun of it, but lots of people have done it.”

  “You’re right,” said Bob. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife, flicked the blade out of a bone handle well-worn with use. He pushed the tip into my chest.

  “What do you say?” he said. “Ready to make good on all that talk?”

  I stared into his eyes. I had no doubt that if I said yes, Bob would plunge the knife into my chest, and then twist it for good measure. That’s just the way he was.

  “Put the knife away, Bob,” I said.

  His face lit up with an impish grin. He pushed the blade back in and put the knife inside his pocket.

  “You’re a pussy, Eric,” he said. “All talk and no show.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I know. But it bothers me.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said Bob. “Being a pussy would bother me, too.”

  “Now you fuck off,” I said. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  Bob rolled his eyes and then took another drink.

  “I know what you meant,” he said.

  “Come on, Bob,” I said. “I’ve been at this for seven-hundred years, and you’ve been at it twice as long. What’s your secret? How do you not get tired?”

  “My secret,” said Bob, “Is that I don’t have a hyperactive hamster spinning his wheel inside my head like you do. And when I start to feel an overly complicated thought come on, I don’t indulge it, I push it out of my head and have another drink. Which is exactly what you should be doing.”

  Bob gestured at the table, where the groaning, half-dead woman lay naked before us. He had already taken off a good few chunks of her flesh. The skinless muscles of her wounds pulsed and quivered, leaking little droplets of red. Two bloody puncture marks stood out crimson against the white of her neck.

  “Go on,” said Bob. “Have a drink. You’ll feel better.”

  I sighed.

  “Well,” I said. “If you insist.”

  I bent over the woman’s neck, sank my teeth into her flesh, and took a drink. Her body gave a weak shudder, and, with a gasp, she died.

  “Oh shit, sorry Bob,” I said. “I didn’t mean to finish it.”

  Bob laughed and clapped me on the back.

  “Don’t worry about it, kid, you needed it more than me. Now come on, and let’s go get another drink.”

  I smiled despite myself. Bob always knew how to cheer me up.

  “Alright,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  36

  Donnie the Skeleton

  “So how do I look?”

  “Honestly? Like a skeleton with AIDS.”

  Donnie laughed, and the skin of his face crinkled around his bones like old leather.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I look like shit. But I feel amazing.”

  “So the treatment worked, then?”

  Donnie drained the rest of his beer and set the glass down on the bar. He gestured for the bartender Adrianne to bring him another.

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “My brain MRI was totally clear—no more scar tissue.”

  “And they told you this?” I asked.

  “Ayup,” said Donnie. “And I thought they were full of shit. Just like you think I am right now. That’s why I had it rechecked at a hospital stateside.”

  He opened his phone and slid it across the bar to me. The screen held a photo of Donnie’s brain MRI. True to his word, it was clear. The plaques that used to dot it like chickenpox had gone.

  “Fuckin’ unreal,” I said.

  “Yep,” agreed Donnie. “Pays to be desperate, I guess.”

  “Where did you say this place was?”

  Adrianne brought Donnie his beer, setting it down on a cardboard coaster bearing the bar’s logo, a red cartoon devil chugging a beer.

  Donnie took another long draught.

  “I didn’t,” he said. “That was part of the deal, remember? Non-disclosure and a bunch of other legal witchcraft.”

  “Yeah, but Donnie,” I said, leaning in and lowering my voice, “this is big. They cured your MS. People need to know.”

  For the first time since he’d flown back in this morning, I saw his composure slip. The joy vanished from his face, and he once again just looked like a sick, slight man.


  But he slipped his smile back on almost immediately—he’d always been good at that.

  “Well, I’ll think about it,” he said. “I assume you know I’ll be crashing on your couch, so you’ll have plenty of time to vent your conscience on me.”

  I laughed.

  “You know,” I said. “I wasn’t totally convinced it was actually you until invited yourself over. Let me guess, I’m picking up the tab, too?”

  “Of course,” said Donnie. “I know how important it is for you to feel like a big shot, with the micropenis situation and all.”

  True to form, Donnie timed the micropenis comment to coincide perfectly with Adrianne coming back to check on us. The corners of her mouth twitched as she fought off a smile.

  “Hello there, pretty lady,” said Donnie. “I know I look like shit, but I can assure you that my penis is completely functional and not at all micro.”

  Adrianne laughed, and after about three more hours and more shots than a reasonable person consumes in a month, Donnie, she and I were staggering up the walkway to my apartment building.

  Somehow, we managed to struggle up the three flights of stairs, and by the time we were inside I was ready to collapse. And I did exactly that, face first on the floor.

  Donnie seized me under the armpits and hauled me to my feet.

  “Easy there, buddy,” he said. “I know you want a smaller nose, but smashing it on the floor is not the way to get it.”

  He walked me to the couch and laid me gently down.

  “Donnie,” I whispered, “I’ve got to say something to you.”

  “Yeah?” said Donnie. He looked worried.

  “You’re the ugliest motherfucker I’ve ever seen.”

  Donnie’s face cracked into a wide smile, and, winking, he said, “Don’t worry buddy, we’ll get you a mirror. Then I’ll only be the second ugliest motherfucker you’ve ever seen.”

  I laughed myself into sleep as Donnie and Adrianne adjourned to the guest bedroom.

  ***

  The next morning I got my first hint that something was wrong with Donnie.

  I awoke to the sizzle of meat cooking on the skillet. Sitting by my head on the ottoman was a plate piled high with eggs. Next to that was a can of beer frosted with condensation.