This One is Deadly Page 6

At least the if the woman had checked the forecast she could’ve expected that. At least the weather man did his job right today.

  Fuck him.

  MICHAEL:

  Oh crap.

  He’s leaked on my shoe. Not urine. Just his insides. That’s okay, right? I can’t be okay with that. He smelled like rotten grapes. No. Apples. Like rotten apples. It was his sweat, his forehead touched mine as I dragged him back inside. It felt stained—my forehead. And my body crawled in hopes of a shower. I needed one. I needed to wash the day off me.

  Then—just maybe—I would wake up.

  “Is there someone I can call,” I asked.

  The man grimaced and said, “Fuck him.”

  I didn’t know how to take that. I was sure it wasn’t really directed at me, right? He started to sound like Danny Glover and mumbled into further incoherency.

  “You just rest. I’ll call 9-1-1.”

  The man grabbed my arm, yanked it before I could use my cellphone. “Don’t you dare.” All the clarity in his voice was restored.

  “Just tell me what to do?”

  The man groaned. I think his name was Anson or Bronson or something. He looked more like Charles Bronson. At least how he could stare me down like I was deserving of being shot where I stood. I backed off, left him bleeding out on our couch.

  We’ll buy a new one, I told myself. These organizations will probably put us in a witness protection agency or cover the costs to keep us from going to the media and exposing whatever the hell was going on.

  Think positive.

  Everything works out.

  It always had.

  That’s how I met Kristen.

  That’s how I got my job.

  Worst-case scenarios followed by the stroke of luck.

  I should’ve played the lottery today.

  Karma. It’ll all balance out.

  Some driver distracted by this downpour will hit Benjamin. He’ll be dead. It’ll be over. Just like the cover story option in the brochure. There’d be witnesses, people who would mourn with us. We’d just have to forget that he was apparently evil. We could mourn him like healthy parents.

  Sue the driver.

  No. Be the good guys and forgive him on national television. That would lead to donations… charity. Good things. Deserved.

  If Kristen wants to try again, I’ll try again.

  The first two years were rough—so was the year leading up to the birth. That’s nothing. Small change. I’m going to live. Worse things will happen to me, but I’ll survive them too.

  “It’s not going to be easy,” the man said.

  “What?”

  “You said, ‘it’ll all work out.” He snorted unexpectedly, it drove him to cough.

  “What do I have to do?”

  “It all ends when that thing is dead. You kill it and poof, we sprinkle fairy dust on everything. You can go back to normal,” he said.

  “How do I kill it?”

  His eyes rolled back. He didn’t answer me.

  “Tell me how?”

  “As…a child…power is weak. It’s bound to its…flesh. Kill it like you would kill any…”

  “Don’t die on me, you have to help me!”

  The man’s eyes didn’t roll forward. His tongue did.

  Kristen would want a new couch after a man died on it.

  Pretty sure of that.

  KRISTEN

  Jack, the jack ass, tripped me. Somehow he got ahead of me, kicked my legs out from under me. I landed on my chest, then bounced my chin off mulch.

  I kicked at him, then clawed as he tried to restrain me.

  “Ease up!”

  “Let me go! I have to kill it!”

  He smacked me across the face. “Listen to me. Stop. Listen to me.”

  I gave him his moment, a few seconds.

  “You know this one, right? Well he doesn’t know that yet,” Jack said. He paused, was this where I said something brilliant or sane? “Okay, well, look. Just go back to the house. Let us handle this.”

  “You couldn’t handle it. Now he’s out there.”

  I kicked him in the groin.

  He didn’t budge.

  “I’m a professional lady. I learned to wear a cup a long time ago.”

  He pulled us both off the ground, but kept his arms around me.

  “So you met this one before,” Jack said. “Well, if I were you I wouldn’t have any more children. They tend to be sentimental. It may not be you they strike next, but your children. I’d also avoid neighbors with children.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “It’s just good advice. I’ve heard stories about this particular one. He’s particularly nasty.”

  “Benjamin?”

  “And every other name it has used. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last.”

  “It ruined everything,” I said.

  “I know. But it doesn’t know you feel that way. You protected it. Benjamin was able to—I’m not blaming you—but he got away because of you. He’ll trust you. He’ll double back to seek your protection, they always do. Just wait here, we’ll be ready.”

  I smashed my forehead into his.

  His grip broke. And I ran. Ran into to the woods. I called to him—Benjamin.

  It was tinged with animosity at first, but then Jack’s words began to sink in.

  Benjamin trusted me. He would come back for my protection.

  I could still be his mother.

  I ran deeper into the woods. I knew Benjamin knew them well. We took walks through the woods, found turtles and bugs, picked leaves for science and craft projects. I showed him things my mother used to tell us.

  I changed my tone.

  I called him like a scared mother,” Benjamin, honey, please…”

  It would be night soon.

  Was he lurking nearby?

  “I’ll protect you,” I said.

  I broke off a stick, and then another. I tried to sharpen them against a stone. It had been so long since I’d done this. So long since I thought of Devin.

  I was going to name my first Devin.

  I hid as Jack scoured the woods looking for me. He was scaring off Benjamin if he was out there. Or he was distracting him. I knelt down and worked as fast as I could.

  I hadn’t forgotten a thing.

  In the darkness, I dreamt of light. Little candle lights. Birthdays. Benjamin’s eyes, his smile. The way he always impressed me with his intelligence. I thought I had been just one of those parents who always thought their child was smarter than others.

  No. There were still moments when he tricked her and pretended to be stupid. She couldn’t trust him when he came now. He could play like the child, only to kill her. He could play into the trap only to do something supernatural. I couldn’t forget that. I couldn’t let my guard down.

  No. Every sound in the woods wouldn’t let me.

  An owl hooted. It didn’t sound natural. But I’d never really heard an owl in the wild. Another hoot. This one was closer. A breeze cut through the trees as if it chased the owl.

  “Benjamin?”

  Leaves rustled.

  My heart thumped.

  “Is that you? It’s mommy, I’m here? I’ll protect you.”

  “P-p-promise?”

  I jumped at the sound of his voice. He knew I was afraid of him.

  “Are the b-b-bad men gone?” he asked.

  “They’re at our house, baby. But I can protect you. We can leave this place.”

  “You’ll protect me?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Oh mother, I knew that you would!” Benjamin ran at me, his arms opened to hug me—or kill me. He never had a chance for either. The ground gave out beneath him.

  He sidestepped my trap. He glared at the spiked sticks in the hole.

  “Was that meant for me?”

  “Were you going to hug me?” I asked.

  “Yes, mommy. You stupid bitch.”

  I backed up, careful where I st
epped. “You’re Jenny, aren’t you?”

  Benjamin glared at me, then he found a smile that had haunted me all my life. It did him no favors though. All the guilt in the world had not changed how I felt when Jenny smirked at me.

  He got a rise out of me. That’s why she had always done it.

  “You really think I wasn’t going to keep to my word, Kristen? I mean mommy.” In an instant he changed his tone and, he was sweet Benjamin. The boy I had thought I named after my father. The father that came to Devin and my rescue nearly thirty years ago. But I was going to name him Devin after my brother, my best friend.

  “You failed then, and you have failed now,” I said.

  “What makes you think that, mommy?” Benjamin asked. “You and your brother have lived with guilt all your lives. While you may have become a homemaker and a mother, Devin spiraled off into excess and abuse. Remember him as a smiling boy if you like, but he drowned in his own vomit before he could even grow a real mustache. I broke him, and now I get to break you—mommy, sister, enemy.”

  “You’re weak,” I said. “They told me you don’t have half the power you could have as an adult. You’re smaller than me, too.”

  “You saw what I did to the professional, didn’t you?”

  “You haven’t seen what I’ll do to you.”

  Benjamin stepped closer.

  “There are things I will never forget,” I said.

  “Then don’t forget this either,” he said.

  One more step.

  “This one was Devin’s favorite,” I said.

  The ground gave out.

  I watched him squirm. He barely moaned. He whistled—not intentionally. A spike jammed up through his chin, and ripped open one side of his nose. The untouched nostril whistled as Benjamin still breathed.

  Two more spikes protruded through his thigh and shoulder. There had been more spikes in that hole. But they must’ve broken when he fell into my trap.

  Benjamin didn’t say another word. He stared up at me, lifted his shoulder off the spike, and then died.

  JACK:

  She snatched the pamphlet right out my hands. She flipped through it vigorously. Then she chucked it back at me.

  “It doesn’t say anything about how to make sure they never come back.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I said.

  “He’ll be back then.”

  I nodded and started to tell her my story, how I came to do what I do, but she stopped me.

  “I want to be there when he comes back.”

  I smiled at my new partner.

  THE FUTURE

  KIRSTEN:

  The fever was hot enough that a thermometer would’ve only added insult to the way I felt. My mother kissed my forehead anyway, and forced the glass thermometer into my mouth.

  “Just over a hundred,” she said a moment later. “You rest up. I’ll bring you crackers and ginger ale.”

  You rest up.

  Did she know what I had to do today?

  A cough put my head back into my pillow when I tried to sit up.

  “I said take it easy,” my mother said.

  I tried to swallow—couldn’t—so my reply turned to a pained nod. Just the one, that’s all I could muster.

  Of course my mother didn’t know what I had to do today, and I wasn’t allowed to tell her, though her expression would certainly have delighted me, timing is important.

  She stopped in my doorway, her hand on the doorknob as if she was so used to closing it that there was no other way to exit my room. She looked back at me and said, “Feel better.” Then left the door open, much to my chagrin.

  The fever wasn’t my only ailment. A congested nose forced me to leave my mouth gaping. Warm mucous teased the back of my throat. I drank it, sucked it down as if my body had figured out the secret to making itself well again. It was a stupid body.

  I knew it was the milk that they gave me at school. As soon as I drank it, I knew it was off—rotten.

  This body did not favor my ambitions. It caged me.

  My vision blurred as my focus jumped near and far.

  I knew it would not last, but time slowed—even for me.

  The doorbell chimed.

  Someone was here.

  Who would be here on a school day and when my mother was supposed to be at work? She only took the day to look after me, her sick precious young girl. The deliverymen always left the packages on the porch…and my mind. My stupid mind was thinking like a human.

  There was only one reason for the doorbell to ring at that very moment.

  My mother greeted a woman at the front door. A friendly exchange led to the creaking of the front door being opened wider.

  Don’t let her in!

  Then a spur of air.

  A heavy thump.

  She shot my mother—a tranquilizer dart! My mother collapsed over the couch. The woman skipped every third step as she jogged up to my room. She had come for me.

  She had found me at the most inopportune time.

  My fever, my aching head, my congested face. I wiggled helplessly beneath my covers, entangling myself until I fell off the bed.

  A toy brick jabbed my hip. I suddenly had the inclination to rethink everything I’d ever done leading up to this stupid, stupid moment.

  But the woman cut that thought process short. She didn’t have to kick open the door. She barely brushed it to step in. She was built like an athlete, a true professional. No one would’ve ever have known that she’d reared a child in her now distant past.

  Just how long had it been?

  I hadn’t forgotten her face.

  And she knew my true face, like only a mother could know. I forced a smile that would further her familiarity.

  “The milk. That was you.” I spoke without the pleasure of any confirmation. “And the tranquilizer puts the protective parent out of harm’s way. A clever woman you have become.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “It did take you nearly decade to find me again.”

  “I apologize for not being the agent that got you in the womb last time.”

  I smiled. “You win this round.”

  I presented myself for murder. I did not favor the pain that would follow as I traversed the dimensions until I reached a worthy host. My current host lived thirty minutes from the nearest hospital. It would be an unpleasant journey, but a baby is born every minute.

  “Oh, I apologize. That’s not how things work anymore. We don’t just kill you so you can run amok somewhere else. The way you feel right now is just the harbinger of things to come. You see, you don’t gain your powers until your human body has matured, stopped growing.”

  My curiosity piqued. What had my enemy learned about my kind?

  “You were Krystal last time, and Kirsten this time. I appreciate that you haven’t forgotten me.”

  “I never forget a mother.”

  “I never had a daughter.”

  She made me laugh, and I said, “Or a son for that matter.”

  She smiled at me, and then rolled me into a box. She shut it tight. I couldn’t move. Something inflated all around me and bound me in a position where I could not break my own neck by thrashing.

  She really intended to delay my next host.

  “This won’t work!” I screamed. “You’re as pathetic and oblivious as you were when you were a child!”

  She knew I was panicked. I could feel her heart racing with excitement—joy.

  She was happy.

  Stupid bitch.

  THE END.

  SUPPLEMENTAL:

  AFTERWORD

  To quote the greatest chapter ever written in full, “My mother is a fish.” Like many of my generation, we were forced to read William Faulkner’s AS I LAY DYING in high school. What started out as a chore, ended up the seed that kept me reading ever since. I won’t compare my style to Faulkner’s and I’d ask that you would refrain as well. Over a decade later, I thought I’d try my hands at chapters
that bounced from something like stream of conscious narrators. The original short story was a methodical exercise. Each of the three characters was supposed to move the plot in 500 words each.

  Not long after sharing the story with peers and looking back over it, I realized there was more I wanted to say. It took 4 years to say it as I bounced between other projects. My writing style changed (improved?) and expanding the story started with developing the original 500 word segments into scenes not constrained by word count.

  If you click forward you can read the original short story, I believe it is still effective to the original emotion that I hoped to convey, but I hope you enjoyed the novella much more.

  I was always interested in exploring the mother’s childhood and how this creature would take the name Benjamin and how it wouldn’t seem odd to her that that was the name she selected, but I also wanted to make sure that the creature had come in direct contact with her before.

  In all honesty, Devin was going to be the creature when I initially wrote him. I wanted to mirror the idea of Benjamin as a perfect child, but parents don’t often get to see who their kids really are. Perhaps my parents knew the relationships that I had with my brothers and sister better than I thought, but there was definitely a period of strife. I was a bully, but a bully who felt justified because of the age-old complaint ‘it’s not fair.’ I was never really innocent, but I was blamed for many crimes I did not commit. It created an ongoing frustration and disobedience.

  We laugh about it now. My sister (now a parent) confessed to my mother about manipulating our siblings at my expense. And I still laugh about how I got her to jump in a trench where a nest of yellow jackets lived. There were moments of victory, but the best victory is that we did survive each other, and that we stuck together.

  I’ve often heard the phrase that blood is thicker than water, and while I don’t agree with the science (well, the science might be sound…) I mean… the idea behind that phrasing. I think blood forced four siblings to know each other when we probably would’ve rather known anyone else during our childhoods. But because we got to know each other, because we got to understand each other, all our trespasses went from being an act of war to being part of a joyful reminisce.