Part 1 (1/2)

The Horribles.

Nathaniel Lambert.

To Melissa, my wife, thank you for helping me face my own parade of horribles.

CAUSATION.

Momma was listening to Billie Holiday on a summer day when it was a little too hot outside but the breeze was just right. Sheldon was latched on to the hem of Momma's dress while she swayed her hips back and forth and hummed along to ”Lady Sings the Blues”.

”Why you wanna listen to something so sad, Momma?” he asked while she spun around him with ease to the opposite side of the small kitchen.

”Baby, this here just reminds me how happy I am.”

She moved like water across a smooth rock, navigating around the little boy without even making a ripple. Sheldon's small hand clinging to the neatly pressed fabric of her dress was more an extension of his mother's grace than a hindrance. He could watch her dance forever.

Just as Ms. Holiday was wrapping up her last lament, Daddy hollered from the shed out back. Momma stopped dancing and set down the plate she was drying. She tilted her head to the side, her face worried. Sheldon liked the way the sunlight s.h.i.+ning in from the kitchen window reflected off her lovely, dark skin. On tip-toes, she leaned against the counter to get a better look outside. Sheldon wasn't too worried. Daddy probably just hit his thumb with the hammer again. Momma must have thought the same thing, 'cause that knitted up look loosened around the edges just a bit.

”Go out there and see what your father is up to, Sheldon.” Momma gently nudged him toward the back door. ”Make sure he didn't hurt himself. When you get back, we'll have to break out that rhubarb pie you've been eyeballin' like a starving vulture.”

”Ok, Momma,” Sheldon said on the way out. Halfway through the back porch he stopped, turned around, and gasped. I forgot my boat, he thought. He left the toy sailboat, the one his father had made from a piece of fine oak, on the top of the front stairs. Someone was sure to s.n.a.t.c.h it up. If something were to happen to it . . . he'd just die.

With the same grace of his mother he maneuvered around the kitchen table, dashed through the living room, and out the front door. Momma looked up from behind the open icebox when her boy's bare feet slapped against the hardwood floors. She shook her head, stepped back holding a freshly baked rhubarb pie and shut the door with her hip.

”Praise Jesus!” Sheldon cried softly so his Momma couldn't hear. His boat sat up against the wrought iron railing where he'd left it, untouched. He scooped the polished wood up in his arms and squeezed gently. The soft cloth of the miniature sail tickled his cheek. Safe and sound. Now he could go check on Daddy and, as Momma said, make sure he hadn't hammered his hand to a board.

Daddy must have been tired, 'cause he decided to take a nap right there on all that dirt. Even though it was warm enough to make the Devil sweat, he s.h.i.+vered something awful. Sheldon's first thought, when he rounded the corner of the old shed and saw Daddy lying on the ground, was to run back inside and get him a blanket and maybe a pillow. It couldn't be comfortable sprawled out on that hard, dirty ground. There was something dark and thick spilt all around Daddy's head. Sheldon thought Daddy must have dumped a can of motor oil and accidentally lay down in it. The boy also saw a track of oily footprints leading from the bigger puddle back around the shed toward the house.

He quit moving toward his spasming father. A different thought occurred to him. He hugged the wooden toy tighter and swallowed hard. What if he wasn't sleeping? What if Daddy slipped in the oil and hurt himself?

Sprinting closer to Daddy, Sheldon collapsed. The oil splashed up on his bare knees and he slid uncontrollably, cras.h.i.+ng into the no longer s.h.i.+vering body.

Everything was wrong. Daddy's perfectly shaved head, normally s.h.i.+ny and smooth, had a big uneven crater on the top. Large jagged shards of white bone were buried in all the red and greyish speckles of foamy fat bubbling out. Sheldon realized what he lay in wasn't oil at all.

He finally dropped the boat and put two tiny, innocent hands over the hole to try to stop the blood from flowing out. It seeped up to his knuckles. He tried to stop the seepage until it grew sticky and stopped altogether. At the end, Sheldon looked hard into his Daddy's fading eyes expecting him to wink and let the boy in on the joke. He'd stand up and they'd both go in for a piece of pie. Daddy was always playing jokes, like making it look like his thumb came off his hand. But he never did see a wink. His Daddy's pursed lips relaxed and Sheldon leaned in close, looking down at his father, to feel one last hot breath rasp out onto his cheek. He breathed in his Daddy's last breath.

Momma screamed from inside the house.

The distance between what used to be Daddy and the screen door was short, but to Sheldon it felt as long as a football field. He sucked in all the air his tiny lungs would hold and pistoned his legs up and down. He followed the footprints, the b.l.o.o.d.y ones, back around the shed, up the stairs, cras.h.i.+ng right through the metal screen. The burning air he had fought so hard for while running came rus.h.i.+ng out when he stepped into the kitchen. All his muscles went loose and his spine melted. He collapsed into a pile on the gore covered floor and curled into a ball. His thumb traveled to his mouth. He didn't blink and his chest rose up and down rapidly. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep, but the scene before him had shackled them open. He stared straight ahead.

Momma had sprung a leak.

Slumped over the counter with her upper half forcefully crammed into the small sink basin, Momma's head was completely submerged. The bubbly dishwater spilled over onto the linoleum and left a contrasting trail of white through all the venous red running in a crooked line toward the terrified boy. The angle of her spine was all wrong, too, not so straight, but more like the angle where two walls meet. He wanted to get up off the floor and lift her head out of the water so she could breathe but he couldn't. Not even parents could stay underwater that long. All he could do was lie completely still with every muscle tightened in his small frame, and suck his thumb like a baby, not an eight-year-old boy.

Momma'd lost a shoe and her bare foot twitched.

Sheldon was saturated from head to toe with the blood of his parents.

Daddy's axe was neatly placed up against the wooden cupboard like his sailboat against wrought iron railing.

Momma's homemade pie fell to the floor and exploded.

Its fleshy insides looked a lot like Momma's.

Sheldon messed himself when he looked at what stood on the counter above his Momma.

It wore large leather boots with too many metal buckles. Straddling the upper half of Momma, it jerked and hitched from side to side like some type of clockwork machine. Sheldon couldn't make out its face, because it was hidden by the hood of a thick wool coat. It's too d.a.m.n hot for wool. That's what his Daddy would've said. But his parents would never say anything again. This thing rocking back and forth, slowly shaking a very human index finger at the boy, had made sure of that.

Sheldon stared back, his brain already void of anything other than fundamental existence.

The boy and monster were locked together in an instant void of time itself, as if the scene was dipped in resin and left to be preserved for a lifetime. Sheldon sealed himself in a different type of resin. This one was deep within and it would take him more time than allotted in an average life to chisel back out. One more lazy shake of a finger followed by a friendly wave, like the ice cream man would give his favorite customer, and then the hooded monster stepped out the window. Sheldon watched transfixed as it leapt out from above Momma's mutilated carca.s.s like a dust ball caught in a vacuum. He'd just seen the Devil and he never, ever wanted to set eyes on it again. Just before he went catatonic the record player wailed: Lady sings the blues She's got 'em bad She feels so sad The world will know She's never gonna sing them no more No more . . .

PART ONE.

WITHIN.

Early this mornin'

when you knocked upon my door Early this mornin', ooh when you knocked upon my door And I said, ”h.e.l.lo, Satan, I believe it's time to go.”

- Robert Johnson.

o n e.

”Good afternoon. May I please speak with Mrs. Stewart? Ah, wonderful.”

”Mrs. Stewart? This is Sheldon Delaney. Oh, I'm fine, really, just fine. And you . . . ? That's no good . . . I hope it wasn't anything too serious. Great! You had me worried for a minute.

”Mrs. Stewart, the reason I'm calling is to let you in on a . . . well, to be honest, to let you in on a steal of a deal. This isn't something we offer everyone, but our records show that you have been a very faithful customer over the years and we would like to reward you-”

”That's very understandable, Mrs. Stewart. And times are definitely hard. That's why I really need to insist that you take advantage of this unbelievable opportunity. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure how much longer we're going to be able to offer it. Seriously, we're losing money on this one, but it's just one more way for us to show our appreciation.”

”Well, thank you very much. It's people like you that make me want to get up and go to work every day. No kidding.