Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories (15 page)

I felt the same way.

I’d sit in a dark tavern surrounded by other shadows, glassware around me filled with various liquids, amber poured down my throat, one bar as good as the next, the seats on either side of me filled with the shapes of dark acts come to life, filling the space so that no mortal flesh would get anywhere near me, the fumes coming off of me like gasoline on a black stretch of tar, shimmering and pungent, not quite solid in my existence. When a hand finally did come to rest on my sleeve, I’d turn to see black beady eyes imbedded in a shrinking skull, a red beard flowing off of pock-marked flesh, yellowing teeth uttering threats then demanding answers then asking for help before finally devolving into a long string of begging for something violent. The truth didn’t matter much anymore, so I’d take that job, too, sometimes only needing to take a few steps, a pool cue cracked over a head, a knife slid in-between ribs while the leather-clad behemoth pissed into the urinal, baring his teeth as he slid to the floor. Sometimes it was a ride into the endless night, the lights of the city sparkling like a distant galaxy, deeper into the concrete jungle, or perhaps out into the communities that ring the city, thirty miles north to never-ending cornfields, just to run a blade across a throat, a hole dug in haste, a fire burning late into the night, clothes tossed in, standing naked amongst the sharp stalks, blood collecting in a pool at my feet.

And yet, I still turned away from it all, smiling like a Cheshire cat, laughing at whatever demons lurked inside my melted brain, shadows at the periphery, a flock of birds shooting up into the sky, writhing snakes at my feet, and shattered mirrors whenever I paused to stare too long. Waiting to take my photos, as the windows filled with fog, spiral graphics emerged in the mist, wrapping around the interior of some car I’d stolen, a language I chose to ignore. The cackling radio spat out nonsense as the distracted officers tried to get the case right, hissing and popping noises coming from the interior of the cab, dispatch turning to distant tongues, biblical verse spinning out into the air, whoever utters the name of the Lord must be put to death. A cairn of stones was stacked at the end of a dirt road, lost in the suburbs, out past the farms, oak trees ringing the green fields, dusty paths between bulging harvests, and in the middle of the rocks a singular tree branch, forking in all directions, gnarled digits reaching into the sky.

For a man with no faith, it was easy not to believe.

***

The things we say when we are desperate, I imagine I said them all. Somewhere between the angst of my youth and the desolation of my last days on this planet, I had a life that mattered. I was in love, and she was able to see beyond the mask I wore, able to lay her hands on mine and calm the savage beast, bring me down off my high that prowling the city streets required. It shimmers like a ripple in the water, my memories of what once was, the boy in his quiet innocence, the ways we used to be a family. It was as plain as can be, a house in the suburbs, with all of the essentials—hardwood floors, fireplace for surviving the harsh Chicago winters, bedrooms and baths, a back yard with trees and flowers, a two-car garage, a dog that licked my hand no matter how many times I struck it, a basement unfinished in gray concrete where I’d disappear to in order to shed my skin. We would sit down to dinners of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and peas, a glass of cold milk, and smiles all around the table, no questions about my day because she knew it had been anything but nice. The first thing she’d do when I got home was to drop whatever she was doing—making dinner, playing with the boy, feeding the dog, working on the computer—just to show me that I mattered, wrapping my weary head in her small, soft hands, kissing my face, hugging me, pressing up against me, to remind me why I worked so hard, her feminine lightness fluttering around me like a butterfly, bringing me down to earth, pulling my head up out of the ground, as my arms went limp, and I tried to shake it all off.

But the death came anyway.

I could lie and say that I’d become a different man, that the wife and son had changed me, made me better, erased my past actions, and the violent acts I’d committed. The mannequin I’d become out here walked these streets with a profound selflessness, a sense of charity, and hope. And maybe I believed it all at first, that I could repent, that I could ask for forgiveness, and find absolution. But deep down I knew it wasn’t true. So much had been buried, gunshots in the dead of night, open wounds spilling blood and life onto warehouse floors, back alleys swallowing naked flesh and hungry mouths—no, I knew nothing had been forgiven.

Or forgotten.

My memories of fatherhood were fleeting, and scattered, but true. It was like coming up out of an ice-cold lake, skin shimmering, numb yet awake, my heart pounding in my tight ribcage as if it might explode. I could see my son with such clarity, the way he’d wrinkle up his nose, or hitch up his shorts as we ran around the back yard kicking a soccer ball, his eyes on me as if spying a dinosaur—something he thought had been extinct, wonder wrapped around disbelief. And then the darkness would come swooping back in, and I’d disappear, my base desires overriding the logic. It wasn’t that I didn’t see him, I did—but for some reason he felt eternal, the time I needed, I wanted, grains of sand in a never-ending hourglass.

When he first got sick, the boy, she took him to one doctor after another, his cough filling the upstairs of our house, his tissues dotted with yellow phlegm and splotches of red, his skin going translucent as we thought cold, then flu, then pneumonia. Then cancer. I saw how it drained her, how it sucked all of the life out of her, her hair no longer golden, merely straw. Her eyes dimmed to dull metal, the oceans I used to get lost in, shallow and dirty—polluted with worry and exhaustion. She wouldn’t even get up from the kitchen table when I came home, merely shifted the wine glass from one hand to the other, her lipstick rimming the glass in a pattern that wanted to be kisses, but ended up turning into bites.

And in that moment, I made a deal.

***

It was a warehouse on the south side of Chicago, a friend of a friend of a friend, or more like the enemy of a junkie who dealt to some whore, the information sketchy at best, the ways I’d pushed out into the world so vulnerable—a walking, gaping wound, grasping at straws, lighting candles in churches as I stumbled across the city, uttering words that I didn’t believe.

Rumors.

Speculation.

The blood moon was a rare occurrence—our planet directly between the sun and moon, Earth’s shadow falling on the moon in a total lunar eclipse.

It was a last resort, my time spent praying falling on distant deaf ears—knees sore from time spent groveling, fingertips singed from one long matchstick after another, holy water dousing my flesh, as my boy turned slowly into a paper-thin ghost. I told her I might not be back, and she hardly moved, almost as hollowed out as I was, smoking again, standing in our back yard, her gaze settling on me, finally seeing me for what I was. She didn’t have to say that I’d brought this sickness down upon us, for she’d known I was a carrier for as long as we’d been close. She had just chosen to see me now.

I stood over the boy, as he slept, and thought of all of the things we’d never done together, and never would. The posters on the walls were of Batman and Superman, and I longed to tell him they didn’t exist, to beg him to see the world as I did, which only reminded me of why I had to leave. Even this innocent soul, my son, was just another canvas upon which I needed to splatter my darkness and deceit. Whatever magic and illusion surrounded him, in his youth, why couldn’t I just leave it alone? Was I so damaged that the cracks in my armor let all the light out, unable to hold dear to a single memory, or loving gesture, or gentle way?

In the corner of his room there was a large stuffed animal, a black-and-white-striped tiger, which I’d won him at Great America, one of the few times we’d spent the day together alone. We rode the rollercoasters, ate cotton candy and hot dogs, and then spent whatever money I had on a series of games I told him were certainly rigged. He looked at me with suspicious eyes—unable to believe such a thing could be true. I pointed to the ladder climb, the way it was balanced, nearly impossible to stay on top. A young boy about his age was working his way forward, getting so very close, the guy running the game easing over to the edge of the structure, leaning up against it, and when nobody was looking he nudged the frame, shaking the metal of the game, so the kid spilled onto the cushion below. I nodded my head, but the boy had missed it, squinting his eyes, and shaking his head. When we got to the ring toss, I was down to my last ten dollars.

“Nobody ever wins these things, do they?” I asked the chubby girl running the game, her cheeks rosy in the summer heat.

“Sure they do, all the time,” she beamed.

“Really?” I asked. “When was the last time somebody won?”

She looked away from me, scrunching up her face, eyes glazing over as she stared off into the distance, searching for a memory that didn’t exist.

“See, son,” I told him. “Never happens.”

He eyeballed me and exhaled.

“Can we try anyway?” he asked.

“Last week,” the girl said, “I wasn’t here, but Amanda was, she told me . . . ”

“Save it for somebody that cares, sister,” I said handing her the bill. She gave us each a bucket of plastic rings, frowning slightly, stepping back out of the way. She swallowed and tried to smile, wishing us good luck, as I glared at her from where I stood.

The boy went through his rings pretty quickly, as I tried to develop a plan, a way to surprise us both, and win one of the damn prizes for once in my life. I was working on a backward flip, the rings seeming to clang around the middle of the glass bottles, and shoot up into the air. The spin seemed important, not like a Frisbee, spinning round and round, from side to side, but like a coin flip—the motion backward, some new way of beating the system, I thought.

The boy watched me as my bucket emptied, quickly running out of chances.

“See, I said,” as he looked on, the day having sapped our energy, the sun starting to set, “this thing is . . . ”

And the plastic clinked off of the glass bottles, flipped into the air, the revolutions slowing as the voices around us drifted on the hot summer air, the smell of popcorn, my boy smiling, the ring settling over the top of a bottle, rattling back and forth before sitting down for good, staying on the top. It was a winner. We’d won.

The girl looked at the bottle, back to us, and set off the siren, cranking the handle, yelling, “We have a winner, big winner over here—winner winner chicken dinner,” her smile so wide it ate her face, the kid jumping up and down, and against all logic, a grin seeping across my face as well. She asked my son which one he wanted, and he selected the tiger, almost as big as him, and he took it from the girl, soon to hand it off to me, the day almost gone, the spark of our victory pushing us onward.

“Thanks,” I said, as we walked away, the counter crowded with new suckers trying to capture a bit of our luck, the magic we’d had for just a moment.

I stood over the boy and held his hand, a wave of grief washing over me, sitting down, as the tears leaked out of me, sobbing into the darkness, asking the boy for forgiveness, asking my wife for forgiveness, asking God for forgiveness, knowing that none would be coming from any of them—but asking anyway. I’d be gone soon, and it was better this way, if they let me go easy, if they just thought of me as some dark presence that would settle over some other tract of land, a mass of clouds and cold rain, waiting to erupt with lightning and thunder.

I told the kid I loved him, and then I left. I told her the same thing, my wife, and for a moment she was there again, as I whispered in her ear my secret. If I never came back, it meant that I’d won, we’d won, and that the boy might possibly be spared. Her eyes lit up for a moment, piercing the darkness.

It was all I had left to offer.

***

The warehouse. It’s nothing special, but I’m drawn to it like a moth to the flame, and from blocks away I can tell this is either the worst mistake I’ve ever made, or the best thing I’ve ever done. Nobody stands outside the door, a cold rain falling—bits of sleet nipping at my flesh, the possibility of snow. The double doors hang open like a mouth, and inside I see a red glow, an altar in the middle of the room, a pentagram drawn on the floor in white chalk.

I take the three black candles I’ve brought and bring them to the pile that surrounds the altar, and light one of them from another, noticing for the first time that the ring of people surrounding the structure are entirely naked. Some are coated in blood, and some are actively violating their flesh, in a variety of ways, a bell ringing from the edge of the structure, a whispering of foreign words filling my ears. A few others at the edge of the room are wearing black robes, the hoods pulled up, no faces to be seen.

I was told to bathe, which goes against all instinct, but I’m clean as a whistle, sweat running in rivulets down my back, the room oddly hot for such a cold day. I undress and stand in the circle, not saying a word. I am not here to question, to cause trouble, I am here to absorb, to pray to dark spirits since the light ones don’t seem to care. Incense burns in silver bowls, one on each corner of the altar, the scent of pine and cedar drifting to me, mixed with patchouli and musk, something sweet cutting through it, a hint of something foul underneath.

A silver chalice is being passed round, something red inside, I’m hoping wine, so I drink from it, the liquid warm and tacky, thinking of the prayers I’ve come to say, my boy at home, my wife lost to the night, every life I’ve ever taken dancing in front of me, spirits in a loping chain running circles around the candles. In my hand are slips of paper with the names of my family, my name, too, and my wishes for the evening, asking for the disease, asking for the demons to shift, to come to me in my hour of need, to let me become whatever they need me to be, if only they’ll spare my wife and child. I’ve brought this down upon us all, the sickness in me spreading to them. When others step forward to place their prayer scrolls into their candle flames, I do the same.