Wait Until Twilight (9 page)

BOOK: Wait Until Twilight
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I go down the hill at the top of Underwood Street and stop at the house. Down the way that kid, Dusty, sees me from his front yard and comes running. “You came back.”

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home, though.” But behind the screen door the main door is open. I go up and knock. “Hello? Anyone home? Mrs. Greenan?” I wait, but there’s only silence. I turn back, but then I hear a high-pitched squeal, “Eeeeeek!” and the hairs on the back of my neck rise. It’s one of those babies.

“Did you hear that?” asked Dusty.

“Hey, do me a favor and keep watch. I just wanna make sure they’re all right.”

“I wanna come in, too.”

“Here, take my bike and go put it in front of your house and come right back then.”

Dusty runs and takes the bike down to his house. There’s some distant thunder that sounds millions of miles away. He comes back and joins me at the front door and says, “Hold on a second,” and then screams at the top of his voice “Heyyaah!” into the old house. We both scamper down to the sidewalk and wait. No one comes to the door, so we go back up to the porch. Dusty holds the screen door open for me and I enter the dark foyer. It’s real cool in there. What with the drapes and the lights out, it’s kept out the heat. We walk into the living room. The floorboards creak. There’re some sports magazines on the floor in front of the big old television. It looks as old as the brown couch and recliner that line the edge of the room. We go back into the corridor where there’s an old rotary phone on a table against the wall.

“Do you smell something?” I ask him.

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“Smells like my daddy’s feet.” Dusty starts heading toward the kitchen.

“Hey, where you going?”

I follow him into the kitchen. Beside the refrigerator there’s a stack of old black garbage bags, but that’s not the smell. “Why don’t they take this trash out?” says Dusty, and then stomps on an empty soda can. The crunching sound of the can is real loud. He could ruin everything.

“Hey, if you wait outside for me like I asked earlier, I’ll give you a dollar.”

“Let me see it,” he says suspiciously.

I take out my wallet and show him a wrinkled old dollar bill. “Tell you what. Make that two,” I say.

“Okay.”

“If someone comes, you holler at me,” I say.

“All right.” He goes back out the front. I start looking through the pantries and cupboards. There’s lots of canned foods, macaroni, and cereal. Nothing weird here. I slowly make my way up the stairs, and the bad smell becomes stronger. It smells like sawdust and vinegar mixed with a dirty toilet. “This isn’t any feet,” I say to myself. I put my hand to my mouth and nose and keep the other on the banister. First, I check the bedrooms. All the beds are unmade. The dresser drawers are open. There’re dirty clothes everywhere. The entire house feels abandoned, not at all like the way it was the first time I went in there with David. Mrs. Greenan doesn’t seem like the type to keep such an unkempt home. I end up following my nose. The smell seems to be coming from a closet in one of the bedrooms. I peak in through the slats of the closet door, but it’s too dark to see anything. The loud crack of thunder’s getting closer, and I hear a few raindrops beginning to splatter on the house. It feels as though my heart’s going to bust out of me. I take a deep breath and open the door slowly. The smell almost
overwhelms me, but I stay put. My eyes are drawn to the floor, where a burlap bag lays. Something’s moving in there. I don’t like the looks of it, like there might be rattlesnakes in there. But I’ve got to look. I’ve got to know what the hell’s going on. My body moves from without. It’s like I’m watching myself kneel down and carefully untie the strap. I hold my breath as my unsteady hands open up the bag. It’s them, those godforsaken babies. They’re piled on top of each other. One of them turns and looks at me sideways, showing the whites of its bulging eyeballs, and yells “Eeeeek!” out of its perfectly formed mouth. I can hear the screen door slam shut from down below and then footsteps, but they aren’t the steps of that kid. They’re the sound of heavy thudding boots stomping around down there. I turn over on my belly and crawl under the bed, swiveling myself toward the door like a cockroach would. The man seems to be walking around and then stopping and then walking around again down below. My hopes of him leaving the house are quickly dashed when those steps begin coming up the stairs. I’m lying on my stomach with my ear to the floor, and he sounds like some giant in his castle with me the little intruder whose liable to get crushed. A loud wave of thunder rolls and shakes the house, and one of the little babies slowly comes crawling out of the closet on its belly. With its one good arm and leg, it reminds me of a wounded soldier who’s been blown up and is trying to get away. Then it stops halfway to the bed, looking up at me, drooling, wide-eyed. It looks like it’s whispering something to me the way its mouth is opening and closing like a fish out of water. I want it to stop. Then, the loud booming steps come into the room. I can see dirty black work boots and the bottom of some worn blue brogans frayed at the seams.

“Whaddya think you’re doin’?” says a man’s voice. When I hear its strong piercing tone, I feel something cold come over me. The boot pushes the baby back toward the closet. “C’mon.” Then a hand comes down. The baby looks me in the eyes as it’s lifted up and out of
sight. “You tryin’ to get away? You little demon. Get back in there. If it weren’t for yer momma, you’d be dead like you should be. Miracle, my ass. Satanic piece of shit. I have every right to get rid of you. One day I will.” A thud comes from the closet, and he walks back out and down the stairs. A television turns on. I wait a minute before sliding myself slowly out from under the bed and toward the window. By the looks of it I’d probably break a leg if I jump from up there. I’ll have to try another room. Thunder’s coming in regular intervals now, but there’s hardly any rain. Just a light trickle but the drops are heavy. I gingerly tiptoe to another bedroom, one where a window overlooks the roof of the front porch, which declines enough to where I think I can jump from it without hurting myself. I try opening it, but it’s jammed. If I put force into it, I just know it’ll be loud. So I wait for a thunderclap to cover the sound. A white bolt of lightning flashes. A few seconds pass. Then when the rumbling comes, I push as hard as I can. There’s a loud crack from the window, which opens slightly but not enough for me to slip through. I hold my breath. Footsteps are stomping up the stairs, so I frantically tiptoe behind the door. He walks past and goes into the other room.

“What the hell was that?” the man’s voice says. I can hear him searching the closet. “Was that one of you fuckers? Couldn’t be.”

I’m really sweating. My heart feels like it’s going to pop. The boots come around to the room I’m in. I hear them stomping around. A dark shadow moves across the wall. The window slams shut. “Shit,” he says. I can hear him checking around the room. It gets real quiet. I can’t hear a thing. Then the door I’m hiding behind is flung closed and he’s standing there right in front of me, a tall man with a scruffy face, bearded and dirty, and longish dark blond hair over cold gray eyes. He’s kind of lanky, but he looks strong, like he’s made of steel and wires under that tight flannel shirt he’s wearing.

“What the hell? Get out of there!” he screams at me.

He’s pulls out a knife from the back of his jeans. It’s one of those big hunting knives with the teeth toward the handle.

I immediately raise my hands. “No, please. I was just curious. I just wanted to see them. Please, I’ll go and never come back. I promise. I made a mistake.”

He grabs my arm and jerks me into the other room. His grip is powerful. “What’d you see?” he asks.

“Nothing. Nothing. I didn’t have a chance. I got here right when you got in.”

His look of rage relaxes a bit, becomes thoughtful. “Yeah, I was only gone ten minutes to get some beer. I love beer.” He lowers the knife but keeps it close. A slight smirk emerges at the corner of his snarling mouth. He looks at me close. Close enough for me to see the blackheads on his nose, the moisture of what smells like beer on the lower part of his short unkempt beard. He smells like sour sweat and alcohol. I keep looking down at that knife. He reaches around and grabs my wallet. “Let’s see who we got here.” First he takes out the cash and counts it before putting it in his pocket. “Thirty-five-dollar finder’s fee!” Then he takes out my driver’s license. “Samuel Polk!” he says. “Aye, what have we got here?” He finds the picture of my mom behind my driver’s license. “Whoooo! Who is this?”

“It’s my mom.”

“Your momma?”

“Yes, yes.”

“I’d like to Samuel Polk her!” He puts it in his pocket. “I’ll be keeping this for future reference.”

“No, please give back my mom. You can keep the money, everything, just give that back,” I start to cry.

“Oh! Oh, boo-hoo! It’s just a goddamn picture.” He puts my driver’s license back in my wallet and tosses it to me. “You can keep
that. A feller needs a driver’s license. Pick up some hot chicks, right! Then Samuel Polk ’em!”

“Can I go, please?”

“Shit. I’s just playin’. I know all about you. You’re the one who threw up as soon as you saw…them.” He nods his head to the other room.

He sheathes his knife somewhere behind his back and puts his arm around my shoulder. “Why didn’t you say who you were? Come on. Look all you want.” He leads me into the other room and grabs the burlap bag out of the closet. “Here,” he says, and tosses it onto the bed, like it was a sack of potatoes. One of the babies partially pops out of the bag on impact. He grabs it brutally and it screams, “Eeeek!”

“Damn! Look at this thing. It’s the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen, right? Disgusting, but you can’t take your eyes off of it. Here, take it.”

“No, I shouldn’t.”

“Don’t worry, they’re sturdy little bastards.” He shakes it and it squawks, “Kyaaa!” When he stops shaking it, the baby becomes still. It keeps looking at me and at the man. Back and forth, with fear in its eyes.

“The smell,” I say.

“That ain’t them. It’s the bag. It’s my skunk bag.” He hands me the baby, which I hold out from my body. He takes the burlap bag and dumps the other two babies onto the bed. “Put it down,” he says, so I gently lay it beside its siblings. “Not like that,” he says, and picks it up and slams it down as it squeals. “Got it, Mr. Fucking Compassion?” He pulls out his knife again and makes a cut on his own forearms. “See how sharp this knife is? See?”

I nod my head.

“Look.” He puts the blade close to my face. I don’t answer. I’m so scared it’s like reality is starting to tear apart right before my eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that. Don’t look down on me, boy.” He pulls back the knife and slaps me across the cheek. The tears start coming down my hot face.

“What do you want?” I yell at him, anger beginning to well up in me.

“That’s the spirit!” He picks up one of the babies with his free hand and comes close to me. “Hit it.” I stand there, and he says, “What are you waiting for, you little faggot!”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Isn’t that why you came here?”

“No, I just wanted to see them.”

“Liar, you came to kill them.”

“No, I’d never.”

He takes the knife and makes another cut on his own forearm. “Eeeeek. Kyuuuuu!” The baby screams. Then he makes a cut in the part of his chest that’s exposed at the top of his shirt. “It’s getting closer, closer. If it gets any closer, it’s gonna cut him.”

“Please don’t do this!”

“Do what? How do you know what I’m going to do?” He looks at me squarely. “Hit or I start cutting…both together. All three of us will bleed. One happy family. Blood is blood. Death is life. Three for one. Thrice cuts the knife!” He stabs at my arm, grazing it.

“Oh God, stop. Please,” I say. I’m crying, and I can’t stop. He makes a motion to stab again. Then I slap the baby, lightly grazing its cheek.

“Eeeeek!” it says, then moves its mouth like a fish.

“Again,” he says.

“No.”

“Look at it. It doesn’t even feel it.” He presses the tip of the knife against the baby’s belly. “Now hit it again.”

I hit it again.

“Eeeeek!” it says. The sound of it screaming gets under my skin.

“Harder.” I do as he says. “Again! Again! Again!” I’m hitting, but it’s like I’m watching myself from above me, like I’m a ghost. “Good! Now choke it.”

“Please stop.”

“Okay, okay. You’re right. This one’s had enough.” He drops it onto the bed and grabs another one. “This one, then. Choke this one.”

“No, please. Just let me go.”

“You puked the moment you saw them. They disgust you as much as they disgust me. Now you’re about to disgust me, too.”

“It’s all a mistake! I’m not disgusted anymore!” I say.

“Liar.”

He drops the baby on the bed and puts his knife back. Next thing I know, he’s got me by the throat, choking the life out of me. It feels the same as that day on the front porch here. The same inhuman grip. It was him. He presses me down on the bed, and I can feel the babies next to my head. “Now see what you made me do? Now see what you made me do, you fucking piece of shit!” It feels like my head’s expanding. My face feels red hot. His contorted face gets closer until it’s right in front of mine, so close I can’t even see it anymore. He lets go and then stands above me.

“Watch carefully,” he says. And then deftly chops at the front of my throat with his forearm. I can’t breathe. I grab for my throat, expecting it to be crushed. “Now watch,” he says again. And a right roundhouse comes around and hits me on my left temple…then darkness…a kind of bruised ugly darkness, unable to breathe, and flashes of lightning close by in my mind’s eye. I’m gone for a while. Then there’s water on my face, and I’m coughing. The man is standing over me with an empty glass.

“Eeeeek!” screams one of them, lying against my head. “Eeeek!”
It’s so loud. It hurts my ears. My hands start shaking, and then my whole body’s shivering like it’s zero degrees.

The man puts the knife up to my crotch. “I’ll cut your pecker off. Now choke it.”

BOOK: Wait Until Twilight
12.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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