Read Mama's Boy and Other Dark Tales Online
Authors: Fran Friel
Mama's Boy and Other Dark Tales (11 page)
"Get away from my door, you stupid dog,” she said, followed by her favorite whine. “Mom! Goliath's going to mess up my room.” As if I could make it any worse.
One of the cats arrived and curled around Ashley's ankles. She sneered at me as she picked it up for a cuddle. The cat grinned its smug grin as the girl carried her off into the room, slamming the door in my face. The cat would live to regret her preferred status.
The unseen fiends seemed emboldened by my banishment, and their infestation spread down the hall. Their numbers were multiplying, as their kind was destined to do.
As my concern escalated, my mistress caught me digging and scratching under the boy's bed—apparently I damaged the finish on the hardwood floor. She gave me a stern warning and sent me to the laundry room for punishment. It was there I discovered the nest—it was under the dryer. I heard their dusty voices and the sounds of hopping before they detected my presence. At that moment, I decided—if need be, I would stand guard there for the rest of my days. I would not allow the evil to spread and harm my family. I had to stop the dust bunnies.
Day after day and night after night I held vigil in the laundry room. One of the cats stopped by, as usual, to mock my efforts.
"You lummox,” she said as she passed by the door with her fluffy groomed tail held high.
She circled back and lingered, rubbing against the doorjamb.
"Goliath's the big hero—guarding the dirty underwear. Oh, I do feel ever so much safer now.” She walked away with a dismissive glance over her shoulder.
"Loser!"
Eventually the furry devils beneath the dryer became restless—I was thwarting their plans. If I nodded off for even a moment, they darted out to pluck my whiskers or poke me with sharp objects. I thought if I could only hold out long enough, perhaps they would tire of waiting and leave through the dryer vent; then my humans would be safe. But my masters worried that I wasn't eating so they brought dishes of kibble and water to my stronghold. I tried to resist, but eventually they coaxed me from the laundry room to relieve myself, and the determined little beasts started to plan their operations around my forced relief schedule. While I was gone, they ducked out to spill my water dish and prove to me they were on the move and winning the war.
Finally, I refused to leave my fortress. I had to protect my family. They didn't understand the danger they were facing. Unable to hold my bladder any longer, I soiled the floor. My master's patience was already growing thin with my laundry room vigil, but the soiling completely destroyed my credibility.
My master hurled threats of the pound as he dragged me from the laundry room. I strained and pulled at my collar as he tore me away from the only safety I could ensure the family. I whimpered as the voices giggled and chittered and chided me from under the dryer. My master forced me to the front door and threw me outside into the yard.
"Maybe a night alone in the cold will sort you out, Goliath."
I was frantic. I barked and clawed at the door. As the lights went out for the night, I howled in wretched fear for my family. If only I could make them listen, get them to let me back inside the house.
But no one came to the door; instead they shouted from the upstairs window.
"You're going to the pound tomorrow! That's it! Now SHUT UP!"
I lowered my head and dropped my ears. I silenced my sorrowful howls. Wandering around to the deck at the back of the house, I peered through the sliding glass doors, hoping I could at least keep watch from there.
For hours nothing happened. A tentative relief came over me. Perhaps all the threats from the dusty nest were hollow. Maybe my family was safe after all. The moon washed over me in the chilly night. I was weary, and I stretched out on my stomach and rested my muzzle on my paws so I could keep watch through the big glass doors. Soon all the stress and burden of the last few weeks came over me. My eyelids felt like stones, and finally I fell into a deep sleep.
As I slept, I dreamed good dog dreams of running with the boy in the green grass of the yard and fetching my yellow tennis ball. My master looked on with pride and scratched behind my ears when I came to show him my ball.
"Good boy, Goliath. You are the best dog a family could ever have."
My heart soared with joy and love for my humans. I would give my life for them.
Tap, tap, tap
. The sound roused me from my dream, and I felt the cold night air in my bones and the frosted dew on my nose.
Tap, tap, tap
. I opened my eyes to the sight of hundreds of the dusty little long-eared fiends on the other side of the glass doors. They were each holding a weapon. The one tapping on the glass was grinning a long-toothed grin and wielding a meat cleaver from the kitchen above his scraggly, cockeyed ears. Several of the others waved their paws at me, bouncing up and down on their mutant bunny hind feet. A procession passed in front of the door; at least twenty of the dirty beasts danced by, carrying a half-bald cat, legs tied to a broomstick like a pig ready for the spit. The cat's once pink tongue lolled bloody from her mouth. As they paraded by, whiskers twitching, I could hear their wicked laughter through the door.
I leapt to my feet and barked with all my might, and something hit the glass with a splatter. It stuck to the window in a red, sticky mass. As it began its smeary slide down the glass, I could see it was a human ear. I was too late.
In a panic, I barked and pounded my heavy paws against the glass door, but the little beasts turned their backs and shook their dusty cotton tails at me. Through the doorway across the room, I could see a mob of them dragging a body down the stairs, like grimy-furred Lilliputians. I pounced at the doors, throwing the entire weight of my mastiff body at the glass—the frame cracked and splintered. I barked and howled and continued to hurl myself against the glass until the wood around the door finally gave way. The doors caved in and the glass shattered on the hardwood floor, destroying the little fiends that hadn't managed to scatter.
Oblivious to my bloodied paws, I raced across the broken glass and into the living room, heading straight for the stairs and the dusty rodents that were dragging my unconscious master. They turned and attacked, hacking at my paws with knives and scissors, jumping on my back and stabbing me with ice picks and steak knives, but I snapped and I ripped and tore at them until their tiny bodies were strewn like rag dolls, motionless, around the room. Badly bleeding, I padded quickly to my master's side in hopes he was still alive. The gaping hole in the side of his head where his ear had been oozed with thick dark blood. I drew my tongue gently across his cheek. I could feel his warmth—he was still alive. I licked him again, and his eyes fluttered open.
With relief he looked into my face and whispered, “Goliath.” Then his eyes widened and shone with terror. “Upstairs, boy. Get them!” he rasped.
I bounded up the steps to save the others. The master's bedroom looked like a massacre—my mistress's body hung limp over the side of the bed, bloodied and shredded. I ran ahead to my boy's closed door, relieved when all there seemed quiet. Suddenly, shrieks sounded from the teenager's room. A wet trail of red paw prints led to her open door. As I burst into the room, I saw hundreds of the beasts swarming over the floor and around a fluffy feline mass at the foot of the bed. Some of the fiends had broken away from the pack and were beginning their climb up the bedspread. The terrified girl huddled against the headboard, hugging her knees to her chest.
"Goliath, they're eating the cat! Help me!” she whimpered through snot and tears. “Please...."
I leapt into action, mauling and trampling the Long Tooths, but there were so many of them. They swarmed over my body, ripping and tearing at my ears, slicing into my flesh with their household weapons and their razor claws.
As I felt my strength ebbing with the loss of blood, to my horror I noticed little Teddy standing wide-eyed and frozen in the doorway. I barked a warning and lumbered behind the bed, trying to distract the Long Tooths from the boy. Flailing my head around, I flung the beasts into the air. As I drew the mass of fiends away from the door, Ashley made a run for it, grabbing Teddy by the hand. For just a moment she glanced back at me, her face streaked with tears; then the two of them disappeared, leaving me alone with the horde. With great relief, I heard the children running down the stairs.
I struggled to survive, but the fiends kept coming. The blood loss and the pain of my torn flesh were draining me of strength, but the longer I distracted the dark rodents, the more hopeful I was that my family would escape with their lives.
Howling my final battle cry as my ancestors would have done, I reared up on my hind legs and tossed the beasts from my back. Coming down hard, I hammered them with my paws again and again, trampling their wicked bodies. I gnashed with my still-powerful jaws, the taste of their bodies sickening, their black blood spilling from my muzzle as I continued my assault.
Long, painful moments passed during the battle, how many I'm not sure, but I sensed the house was finally vacant of my humans. Bone weary and staggering with dizziness, I stumbled with the weight of the next wave of the Long Tooths’ attack. Taking advantage of my weakness, the rabid beasts dragged me to the floor. Snarling and drooling, they blinded me with their claws. As if from far away, I heard unfamiliar voices, shouts, the popping of gunfire.
My body failed me, and I could no longer struggle. As my pain passed away from my awareness, my thoughts wandered to the ancient mastiff lore and Old Sam; I knew he would be proud. Entrusted with the sacred duty, I had saved my family from the old evil—from the Long Tooths.
Triple-blade, double-blade, electric razors ... god, I'm tired of shaving my legs
, thought Susan as she sank the potato peeler deep into the base of her shin bone. With a steady pull she scraped the tool up toward her knee, smiling as the first long strip of wet skin fell away, revealing the glistening red meat beneath.
"I'm sick of you. I wish you would die,” said Sue. She turned away, switching off the light as she listened to her sister weeping in the dark.
Sue's clenched jaw loosened as she fell into a restless sleep. She dreamed of the past—two little girls, arm in arm, skipping in their identical Sunday dresses. She watched as Drew—her sister—stumbled, toppling them both to the ground. She endured the burning pain from Drew's scraped knee and the spankings they earned for soiling their dresses. So often she suffered for her sister's stupidity. Her only satisfaction was knowing that Drew felt her pain, too.
In her dream memory, Sue sliced a blade deep into the soft pad of her thumb. Blood dripping, she watched Drew's suffering with satisfaction. Torture after torture her self-mutilation continued just to watch her sister bear the phantom twin pain.
Startled from her sleep by a searing pain in her hip, Sue saw a flash of metal. Sobbing, Drew swayed at their beside, bloody cleaver in hand. The hacked flesh at her hip matched the bloody hole Sue discovered below her own ribs. A scream rose in her throat as her sister collapsed to the floor.
No longer were they connected at the hip.
Babies fell from the skies over Eastville. They bounced, they bled, but none cried. Their silence was eerie—their tiny bodies splatted and split open as they hit the rooftops, the road, and the sidewalks of our little street. For miles and miles, the sky was full of falling babies, dark blots against the blue.
Kiki Bordrow stood on the porch across the street hugging a baby doll to her chest. It was swaddled in a soft yellow blanket, tight like her mama taught her. Curls ringed Kiki's perfect face, now blank and stunned. Her mouth hung open in a slack-jawed “O."
I watched from my window as her expression changed, her eyes widening, as if someone had finally turned her switch on. Kiki wound up like nobody's business, her wail piercing the dull-thud-filled afternoon.
"MAMA!” she screamed.
As the bodies mounted at the foot of her porch, a nasty baby eruption splashed Kiki's dress and her dolly's soft yellow blanket. She screamed again; her hands flew up and the dolly went flying through the air like a yo-yo. Unrolling from its perfect swaddle, the naked baby doll appeared to dive headfirst into the pile of its fleshy counterparts. Just as Kiki Bordrow collapsed to the floorboards in fits, her mother blasted through the screen door, ready to defend her little darling from the latest neighborhood mistreatment.
Missus Bordrow skidded to a halt. Suddenly unaware of her daughter's fits, she watched the falling babies with the same slack-jawed “O” Kiki had worn on her face just moments before. One particularly plump infant smashed through the windshield of their shiny new Studebaker, the horn blaring to life.
My knees were raw from kneeling inside the sticky black circle at my window. I'd only gotten up for pee breaks and some water, but I was done now. I went downstairs to the kitchen and dug my finger into the tin of peanut butter. I hadn't realized how hungry I was.
I strolled to the living room window. More moms appeared at the front doors all along Blue Bell Street. I watched as they covered their mouths, cried, vomited, and clutched at their perfect children. Some rushed back into their houses, no doubt calling their husbands at work and phoning the fire department and police.
Obsessed with their own lives, as usual, none of them noticed me standing naked in the front window of our house.
It's the only way to pray.
That's what the pastor taught me.
He said I was special, a messenger of God. Brother Donald Godspeth, pastor of The Holy Blood of Jesus Pentecostal Church, taught me my prayers. He said he'd been waiting all his life for me, Sue Ann Brown. From the time I was three, he schooled me special. We'd pray and the spirit would take hold of Brother Godspeth and he'd give me the healing treatment, to purge my sins and make me the messenger God needed me to be. I never understood how all his sweating and rubbing on me made me clean, but whenever his healing treatments brought blood from between my legs, the pastor cried, blessed me, and then went to sleep in the wet sheets before the altar.