Callis Rose

by Mark Tufo

  “Do you know the part where she mercilessly teased me when I was new at the school? How about the part where she spread rumors about my boyfriend sleeping with Laura? Did you catch that part? How about when she and Mindy hired a witch to try and kill me? Still nothing?”

  “A witch? What’s going on?” Mr. Fields asked.

  “You see, I have some powers. I’m not sure what they’re called, but I have the ability to control people,” Callis stated.

  “Lacey, just call the cops,” Taylor said.

  Lacey’s hand came up and smacked her husband in the side of the head with all the force she could muster.

  “What the hell?” He turned.

  “It wasn’t me!” Lacey cried. “She made me do it!”

  “What is this shit! Listen, little girl, get your psycho ass out of my house before I’m forced to do something we’ll both regret.”

  “Go ahead and try,” Callis said with the hint of a smile.

  Taylor took one step forward and froze. “What is this!” he raged. “Is this some kind of power of suggestion?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Callis said.

  Beads of sweat formed on Taylor’s forehead as he struggled against the invisible bonds. “Lacey, call the cops.”

  “I can’t move either.” She was starting to cry.

  “I can still move, mommy. Should I call nine, one, one?” Jacob asked, picking up on the distress of his parents.

  “Don’t you dare!” Mrs. Fields said as she watched Callis’ gaze go to her youngest.

  Callis concentrated and reached out psychically. It was slightly more difficult as she reached for him, almost like juggling two balls and then having another thrown into the mix. The exertion on her mind was causing her muscles to flex and unfurl. She was instantly perspiring, now matching pace with Mr. Fields who was leaking like a sieve. Veins on his neck and forehead bulged as he tried to break loose from the demon that had him held fast.

  His struggling was causing Callis to work harder as she gripped him and Mrs. Fields. She sent out a thick blue pulse of current to capture Jacob. His bones went board-rigid as she ensnared him.

  “Mom!” he squealed as his back went ramrod-straight, causing the vertebrae in his lower spinal column to sever. The sickening wet crunch as cartilage and bone snapped was all that could be heard in the room.

  “What have you done to him?” Mrs. Fields struggled to get to her son.

  Callis let go of the boy who immediately fell to the ground. He wasn’t going to be a problem any further as his eyes began to close.

  “He’s slipping,” Callis said casually, happy in the sense that she didn’t have to stretch herself psychically. The encounter had given her an excruciating headache.

  “Oh, God, no! Jacob,” Mrs. Fields sobbed.

  “You monster. We have done nothing to you. Let us go so we can get our son to a hospital!” Mr. Fields shouted.

  “Too late for that,” Callis told them. “Do you have aspirin in the kitchen?” she asked as she walked past them.

  “I hope you choke on it!” Mrs. Fields yelled.

  “At least now I know where your daughter gets it from,” Callis replied from the kitchen.

  Jacob was convulsing, his body rocking into the impotent feet of his parents who were powerless to do anything but watch.

  “Our boy,” Mr. Fields cried, tears dropping from his eyes. “I’ll kill you for this.”

  “You’ll have to get in line apparently.” Callis returned to stand back in front of him. She had a bottle of water, which she opened, taking a swig so she could swallow the three pills she had in her other hand.

  “What...what are you going to do to us?” Lacey asked.

  “Self-preservation, that’s a pretty powerful motivator isn’t it? Even as you’re watching your son die, you’re wondering what’s going to happen to you. I get it…I do. I’ve spent a good part of my life alone. You can’t truly rely on anyone but yourself.”

  “You parents should have wrapped your umbilical cord around your neck,” Mr. Fields said through gritted teeth.

  “Probably should have,” she answered after a pause. “I mean, considering I was their undoing, too. I guess I never really thought of it that way.”

  “You’re sick,” Mr. Fields said, his face red, the throbbing vein on his forehead threatening to burst and shower them in an arterial blow.

  Callis looked down as Jacob began to still. She watched as a crimson drop splashed across his chest. She wiped under her nose and pulled her hand away to see blood. “Must have overdone it, or it’s the aspirins. They’re an anticoagulant.” She added as if they would possibly care.

  “I hope you’re having an aneurysm. I hope a blood vessel as thick as a pencil burst in your cancerous skull and even now is drowning that black mind of yours in your own life blood,” Mr. Fields shot out.

  “Eloquent, you missed your calling if you’re not writing books,” Callis replied absently as she wiped again at her nose, noticing that it was slowing up.

  “What about us?” Lacey asked again softly.

  “I’m going to kill you of course.”

  A gasp escaped Lacey’s mouth.

  “Well, I mean you guys are going to kill each other. I don’t really like to get my hands dirty. I can’t imagine doing it like Mindy or your precious daughter; plunging a knife into an unsuspecting innocent soul that is.”

  “Jacob was innocent,” Lacey said.

  “Guilty by association,” Callis told her. Callis reached behind her; she had grabbed one of the remaining knives. It was a stainless steel carving knife roughly six inches long with a razor-sharp edge.

  Lacey cried out in anguish and fear.

  “Cops said the one that killed my foster mother was serrated. I looked for one so we could recreate the scene, but this one will have to do.” Callis looked at her reflection in the blade. A significant part of her was not enthralled with what looked back. But that was in the minority and there was not going to be a vote any time soon, either way.

  “Who wants to do who?” Callis asked. “Or is it whom? Always had a problem with that.”

  “What? Are you insane?” Mr. Fields said. “We are not going to stab each other for your amusement. Near as I can tell, all you can do is keep us stationary.”

  Mrs. Fields knew better, she had watched her son unlock the door and she had unwillingly slapped her husband. “I’ll do it!” she said too loudly.

  “What?” Mr. Fields tried to turn.

  “Self-preservation. Weren’t you listening?” Callis asked.

  “Lacey, you can’t be serious?” her husband asked.

  “Maybe one of us can survive,” she said hopefully, only Callis knew differently. “Someone needs to bury our son.”

  “How very noble!” Taylor shouted at her. “I knew I should have divorced your ass when I found out you were screwing Hank!”

  Lacey’s head looked like it blew back from the force of his words. In all likelihood, she would have fallen over from the accusation if she wasn’t firmly rooted to her spot.

  “Mr. Denton?” Callis asked. “You screwed Mr. Denton?”

  Lacey’s head hung low. “I was at a low point in my life. Stuck at home watching kids, no career…no future. He gave me a shoulder to lean on.”

  “And a bed to lay on, you slut!” Taylor shouted.

  “How long have you known?” She searched his face.

  “At least a year. The first thing he did was start bragging to his friends. We have a lot of mutual friends, Lacey. Did you really think I wasn’t going to find out? You might as well stick me with the knife, lord knows you’ve already broken my heart.” He looked on the verge of tears.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” Tears were streaming down her face.

  “The kids…the kids. I didn’t want them to have a broken home. I guess none of that matters anymore.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she wept.

  Callis had left the small melodrama as it played ou
t. She went back out through the kitchen and into the attached garage. She came back in a couple of minutes later with what she had been searching for. Both of Talea’s parents were crying and straining to embrace one more time.

  “Did I miss anything?” Callis asked. Any compassion or empathy she had, had been burnt out of her with the killing of her foster mother. What she could not know was that the more of herself she poured out to control people, the more of her essence she lost. It was a finite well from which she drank, and the stores were getting low.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Lacey asked.

  “Again, I’m not going to do anything with it…he is,” Callis answered.

  Taylor turned to see the aluminum baseball bat Callis was fitting into his hands. “Please,” he begged her.

  “This is perfect,” Callis told him as she forced him to grip the handle. “You guys are in the midst of a marital dispute involving infidelity. He’s coming at you with a bat when he finds out what you’ve done, and you’re merely defending yourself. It’s perfect.”

  Lacey’s eyes were fixated on the blue metal of the bat.

  “I have money! Please just let me go, you can have all of it! I know the combination to Taylor’s safe. It’s full of bonds, they’re yours!”

  “It’s no surprise your daughter is the person she is,” Callis said as she repositioned Mr. Fields so that he was now facing his wife.

  “I should have just divorced you when I found out.”

  “Please don’t hit me, Taylor. I love you. I’m so sorry.”

  Callis made Taylor bring the bat over his head.

  “You do know this is unrealistic,” Taylor said to Callis.

  She looked at him questioningly.

  “A guy would never swing a bat like this. We’d bring it from the side like a baseball player,” he said with a grim set of satisfaction in his words. “This way I’ll be able to get more torque on the head of the bat.”

  “Stop, Taylor, why are you doing this? Why are you helping her?”

  “Maybe she’s helping me…I don’t know. I’m so tired of this life. I’ve tried so hard to make this family work. I’ve worked so hard to provide for all of you, sacrificed everything I am in the pursuit of money to make sure you were all cared for. And now, the only thing that ever mattered to me is gone. I think I just want to join him, and if I can take out a small measure of satisfaction on that head of yours…then so be it.”

  Callis placed the knife into Lacey’s hand. She looked down at it and licked her lips. Callis then stepped a few paces back.

  “Now what?” Taylor asked Callis.

  Callis released control. She watched as Taylor sagged before beginning his swing. He was a foot from making contact with his wife’s head when Lacey plunged the knife into his chest. The bat angled up as the back of Taylor’s knee gave out, it caught Mrs. Fields near the top of her skull. The bat vibrated as he made contact; bone splintered and a segment roughly the size of a baseball resplendent with Mrs. Fields’ locks lifted off her head, momentarily exposing the brain beneath before settling back into place.

  Blood pumped from the wound in Taylor’s chest, adrenaline flooded through his limbs as he reared back and struck again this time catching her flush in the face as she was beginning to crumble. Her left orbital bone along with her nose shattered, her once beautiful eye was driven into her head from the force. Her high cheek bone was destroyed, leaving her face slack and fallen like an addled palsy victim. Any beauty she had possessed was taken by the barrel of the Louisville Slugger.

  Mrs. Fields was moaning on the ground, blood flowed freely from her eyes, nose, and mouth. She would live for a few more hours on a ventilator once she was found, but would never regain consciousness.

  “What have you made me do?” Taylor cried, dropping the bat. He fell to his knees wanting to cradle his son or his wife, but only able to wrap his hands around the knife that was sapping him of his life.

  “Funny thing is, Mr. Fields, I didn’t do anything. You did. I let the both of you go completely.” Callis laughed.

  “No,” he said as he fell forward driving the knife even further into himself. “There’s no peace here,” were his last words.

  Callis wondered if he was talking about his life or the afterlife.

  Talea was wrecked at the devastation that was wrought in her household, as Callis led her in. A piece of her mother clung to the wall in a graying clump. The floor was slick with blood.

  “I have money,” Talea said knowing the futility of her words.

  “Your mom said that. Wow, you two really are alike. Did you know she slept with Mr. Denton?”

  “What? You’re lying!” A spark came into Talea’s visage.

  “Why would I? What’s the point? Your dad knew about it. Said he stayed with her because of you guys…well…Jacob really, but maybe a little for you too.”

  “Oh, God, Jacob! He’s just a baby!” Talea cried, looking at the tiny legs poking out from beneath the body of her father.

  “He’s the only one I feel any semblance of remorse for. But since the rest of his family is going to be gone, I’m saving him the hardship of being an orphan and then one day encountering someone like you.”

  Talea recoiled at the insult.

  “Please, Callis, it was just what stupid girls do,” Talea pleaded.

  “The bitchiness I could deal with, I didn’t like it, but I could deal with it. Even the rumor Talea, I got it, I did. It was mean spirited and it hurt, but you still hadn’t crossed the line. You got close…going to the witch. I’m still not sure what she was going to do, but when you hurt Kevin…well once I found out that you guys had something to do with it, I knew we were going to get to this point.”

  “Callis, I had nothing to do with that, I swear. That was all Mindy, you have to believe me.”

  “A part of me does, Talea. You seem sincere enough, but you still drove that crazy, demented bitch over to my house. She would have stuck that knife in my stomach if I had answered the door. And normally I would have, but I had just gotten out of the shower and was still putting my clothes on. Two more minutes and I’d be dead and your family would be alive. Can you believe that? Two more minutes. I mean, what’s that? An extra traffic light, maybe a few miles an hour slower driving. Maybe if you had eased up on your gas pedal just a little, things would be so different.”

  Talea was sobbing.

  “Are you sad I’m not dead, or sad you’re about to be.”

  “Both.”

  “That’s fair…that makes sense. Come on.” Callis led the way into the kitchen. Talea followed, and much like her parents, she wasn’t even being directed.

  Talea stopped as soon as she stepped into the kitchen. “Where are we going?”

  “The garage.”

  “You can’t get away with this, Callis. They’ll find out you did this. If you let me go, I won’t say anything to the cops. I’ll admit to driving Mindy to your house and that she killed your mother. I swear I will.”

  Callis pretended to ponder the other girl’s entreaty. “That sounds good, it does, but I’ve already got this figured out and then I don’t ever have to worry about you getting all wishy-washy. I mean, who knows what you’ll tell the cops when you get out of my range.”

  “You have a range?”

  “I guess. Looks like you didn’t think of that. Normally I need to be looking at the person, or within a general proximity. But I’m going to try something new with you.”

  “What, Callis? What are you going to try new with me?”

  “Oh don’t be a baby, it’s too late for that. This is what I’m thinking, let me know if you see any holes. I figure you come home after dropping Mindy off and see your parents and your precious baby brother in a heap of dead meat and you decide you can’t take it any more so you run into the garage and turn on the car. Carbon monoxide poisoning, it’s genius.”

  Talea was crying again.

  “I would think you’d be happy. It’s going
to be the easiest death I dole out tonight. You’ll just slip into darkness and then awaken into the hell you created for yourself. It’ll be fun.”

  “You’re insane!” Talea shrieked. “I won’t do it!” She turned to start and bolt.

  Callis caught her.

  “What about a note?” Talea asked, attempting to find some reason for Callis to terminate her present course of action. “I mean who commits suicide without a note?”

  “Write one then, maybe even confess some of your sins. I think your God will appreciate that.”

  “You’re even nuttier than I thought if you think I’m going to write my own suicide note just so it makes your alibi that much better.”

  “Listen, you little bitch!” Callis said as she stormed across the kitchen. “I can make your death last for hours! I can make you cut yourself with a butter knife a thousand times, starting with that pretty face of yours! Can you imagine how much that will hurt having those teeny tiny serrations pulling across your skin? Now multiply that by enough times to actually die from. I would imagine it’d be excruciating. Or maybe we just turn the stovetop on and I’ll make you press your face up against the cherry-red burner. I bet that would be hilarious! Your last thoughts as pain seared into you would be ‘I smell bacon!’” Callis began to laugh almost maniacally.

  “You’re crazy,” Talea said as she opened up a drawer and grabbed a scrap piece of paper and a pen.

  “Maybe. Maybe seeking revenge does that to you. Just once, if you had stood up to Mindy, none of this would have happened.”

  “I told her I was through with her,” Talea said as she wrote.

  “Talk about being a day late. That’s like making him put a condom on after you’re pregnant. What are you doing, writing a book? Let’s go, Shakespeare, I’ve got another person to pay a visit to before I can go get some sleep. Plus, I’ve got a killer headache.”

  Talea stood up, momentarily looked at her pen and wondered if she could get close enough to Callis to inflict some pain and then summarily decided against it, telling herself that death by carbon monoxide poisoning was infinitely better then the dozen or so other ways Callis could impose.