The Key to Everything (26 page)

He shakes the box of matches and stops. Thinking for a few seconds, he puts the box in his pants pocket. Kneeling down, he shakes his hands and closes his eyes. His finger sticks out in front of him, holds steady for a beat, and then pushes downward into the dead man’s tattoo. 

-51-

Family: A Show of Appreciation

Jason is standing in front of you. He looks exactly like your son, but it isn’t him. There is something off about the way he moves. Like he doesn’t know quite how to make his muscles respond correctly. Like an infant walking for the first time, teaching his inner ear how to balance. 

This “Not Jason” smiles at you. He slowly turns around with his arms held wide, taking time to stop and look at Emily. His eyes glance back at you, but he walks over to the framed black space on the wall with your wife’s head coming through the center. She smiles at him as he moves closer. Your muscles tense and tighten, trying to pull free and warn her.

Not Jason reaches a hand up, brushing her cheek gently with his fingers. Her eyes widen with fear as she realizes this is not her son. The eerily familiar smile widens on his face, and he laughs. He puts both hands around her head and kisses her deeply, with his eyes open. She struggles to pull away, but there is no place to go. Softly he pats her cheek, before he turns and walks across the room.

Reaching the bed, Jeremy has yet to lift his head from his chest. His body shivers with fear. Not Jason sits down next to him, putting his arm over the younger boy’s shoulder. He whispers something into his ear, and Jeremy lashes out. He whips his arms around, hitting and scratching at the impostor. Not Jason easily ducks out of harm’s way and stands up from the bed. Eventually, Jeremy stops his flailing and falls forward onto the mattress his body, quivering with shudders. 

Not Jason turns back to you and smiles. His hands reach up, and in a show of playful pantomime, he removes a non-existent hat from his head, flips it down to his waist, and takes a deep, long bow. All the while, his eyes never leave yours. He straightens back up and mouths the words, “Thank you.”

Now he is gone.

The three of you have been left in your bright white silence. There is no why. There is no how. 

There is only white.

-52-

Auden: Son

There is a red footprint off to your left. After you blink, another one shows up in front of it. They don’t disappear into the white when you blink again. In fact, more of them are scattered all around. A single streak glides in a small line on the wall across from you. After the next three steps, you can only make out toes with a thick blob beneath them. It looks like the feet pushed up onto their toes to prevent making any more markings. They lead up to and away from Jeremy’s bed, heading toward the desk in the center of the room.

One piece of paper slides across the top of the desk and stops at the corner closest to you, hanging over the edge. The whirlpool swirls of a small fingerprint bleed together, pooling into a deep brownish-red smudge. Part of the page lifts up off the desk in an unfelt breeze before slowly falling back into place.

Looking down, you watch the footprints walking over. They step up until they are a foot or so in front of you before they stop. You feel air being blown up from beneath your chin. You hear someone breathing. A scent of sweetness reaches your nose that reminds you of sugary breakfast cereal. 

Jason is standing in front of you now. Oddly-shaped red patches cover his skin. Some of his hair has been pulled or has fallen out. There are small red beads bubbling up on his forehead. Looking him over, you can see them everywhere. You lean your head down toward him, but he shrinks away. Wincing, his head shakes, and he holds his arms out in front to protect himself. His body quivers and his teeth clench together with a sharp intake of breath.

He stands away from you, breathing through his teeth, with his eyes clamped shut. You nod in understanding so he won’t fear you touching him again. Eventually, he relaxes. When he opens his eyes he walks back over and looks up to your face. There is a sad, frightened quality in his eyes that wasn’t there the last time you looked into them. He’s older now, much too old for a little boy. 

He pushes up on his toes again to get closer, so you lean down as far as the wall will allow. His lips brush against your ear and he jerks back for a moment, obviously hurting. “You can go home now, Daddy.” 

You pull back and mouth the word “No,” shaking your head back and forth.

“It’s okay. I want you to.” Still beautiful through the blood and pus, his smile glows with the innocence and love of a small child, despite the tears and ripped skin covering his face. “Don’t worry.”

“No.” Your lips blow the air out from the silent circle they shape.

His breath tickles your ear. Somewhere behind the wind, you can hear a hint of your son’s high-pitched voice. “I don’t want you guys to hurt anymore.” Ignoring the exposed and tender nerves, Jason presses his lips firmly to your cheek.

“I love you, Daddy.”

The footprints disappear into swallowing whiteness. The glow burns at your eyes. You fight to keep them open, looking over at Emily and Jeremy. Everything shrinks to a pinpoint lit with an intense and unbearable brightness. Blind now, there is nothing left but white. 

You feel the hard edge of the wall sliding up your body. Tighter as it moves, you can feel the air being forced from your lungs. Your head feels close to exploding from the pressure building up behind it. Far away, a high-pitched ringing starts in a steady, long stream. The line moving ever tighter up your body makes its way to your neck. Your throat closes from the bottom, moving up over your Adam’s apple, squeezing the rest of you into your head, like an old tube of toothpaste.

Your jaw gnashes teeth into each other, grinding bone into dust. Pressure beats at your eardrums until they explode. White claws at your eyes until they press from your skull, along with the grey matter of everything that makes up you.

Other Boy Five

Jabez opens his eyes on the remaining shambles of the kitchen. Sighing, he kicks the toe of his boot through the torn-out pages of Sgt. Harmon’s book. 

“You were so close, Gene.”

He bends down, looking at the words on one shred of paper, and lifts it to his lips for a gentle kiss. His fingers carefully fold it in half, then over once more. He slides the page into his shirt pocket and stands.

His head cocks to the side a bit, remembering something. He walks over to what’s left of Abram, pulls the matchbook from his front pants pocket, and shakes it. The rattle of matches echoes throughout the entire house. Through the walls, out of the windows, it goes on and on. An old woman down the street turns her head from the television set for a moment, noticing a strange sound floating on the air, before turning quickly back to her afternoon romance show. A boy pauses and looks around before throwing the dodgeball into a crowd of girls on the playground at the school around the corner. A policeman stops his patrol car, looking out the window, listening to his gut saying something is very wrong.

Jabez slides the cover open, pulling out one small, rectangular wooden stick with a rounded bit of white phosphorous on the end. Slowly he slides the tip back and forth along the edge of the box. A line of white smoke swirls up into the air above his fingers, hanging in space before a spark ignites flame.

“Goodbye, Abram.” He drops the burning stick down into the hole spread out in the center of the pages where his brother’s head used to be. Instantly the paper catches, edges curling inward, turning black. Small, oddly shaped particles float up into the air. Jabez watches them dance and sway up near the ceiling. 

Inches before they touch the thick oak beams, the drifting ashes stop climbing. The pages below continue to burn, sending more and more lightly glowing pixies into the fray. They continue to climb up, coalescing into a dark orange cloud pulsating with the slow rhythm of a heartbeat. 

The amorphous shape begins to spin. From left to right, Jabez’s eyes cautiously follow as it rotates. More and more the pages burn, sending glowing ashes into the whirlwind. From its center, a funnel starts to descend. Twisting and turning, it whips about, lashing flames in every direction. Jabez jumps backward, narrowly avoiding a lick of fire just to the right of his arm.

Abram’s entire body is alight, alive with waves of flames rolling, lifting the pages of his limbs into the air. Jabez turns to run for the door. Arms full of fire leap from the floor, flailing and stretching. Orange-red fingers lash out, grabbing at his fleeing legs. 

“No!” Jabez shrieks, reaching out, throwing everything his clawing hands can reach into the greedy conflagration. Chair plant bottle photo frame flipped over table sofa cushion…eating everything in its path, the blaze still comes for him. “I’m out!” he chokes through the thick, dark smoke. “You can’t have me!”

The tornado of fire spins deep into the pit, stretching outward from the pages on the edge of Abram’s remains. Crackling, its enormous flashing snapping teeth howling to be fed. Every bit of air pulls back in on itself into the abyss, arresting everything, returning the world to silence. Jabez holds himself up against a soot-covered wall, watching the pages of his brother collate into a static, quiet pile. 

A beat…

Bright flashes jet out from the crater exploding greedy violent eruptions starving relentless biting deep into Jabez spreading his pages open tearing them apart dragging them down into the nothingness. 

A roar…

deep 

surging 

primitive awful violence 

to shake the heart of the world. 

Jabez’s stolen skin burns away words phrases ink lead blood swirl into the maelstrom. 

dread

revulsion

anguish

lamentation 

all sucked away 

each letter erases 

into the pit. 

nothing escapes. 

nothing remains. 

silence.

PART FOUR

A House

On a street lined with tidy houses, lights shine through the windows, cars sit parked in their garages, basketballs bounce off driveway rims, jump-ropes slap their wordless Morse code on safe cul-de-sac asphalt. Down the street, neighbors burn meat on barbeques and overindulge on Sunday afternoon beer. 

Next door, the house is quiet. No one has seen so much as a curtain rustle for as long as they can remember. Short little witches and cowboys run faster across this darkened driveway with their plastic pumpkins full of candy on Halloween. Even the voices of their mothers and fathers quiet their gossip as they pass by. 

No one remembers who lived there or if anyone ever did. No brightly colored “For Sale” sign has ever been planted in the lawn out front. Surprisingly, the paint is still vibrant. Cracks in the pavement are not overgrown with weeds fighting upward to reach the sun. Newspapers don’t pile up, plastic bags unopened, in front of the door. 

It is a beautiful house. 

It is an empty house. 

Hungry.

Waiting.

-54-

I Dare You

“C’mon man. Don’t be such a pussy.”

“Fuck you dude!” 

“Blackie, if you go in, Jules is gonna think you’re the shit. She’ll probably give you a blow job.”

“Really? You think?”

“Yeah man.”

“I dunno, T.”

“Dude. You’re a waste of space, man.”

“Go in together?”

“What?”

“I mean…I’ll do it if you do, T.”

“Fine. Such a baby.”

T stands as tall as he can, walking fast up the driveway. His shadow bends in the glow of the streetlight, twisting into an old man hunched over, scraping long fingers along the pale concrete. Blackie follows tentatively a few steps behind, not racing to keep up. Both boys trying their hardest to be cool and tough.

Knuckles thud to a response of silence from the other side of the door. T’s breath shudders out of his body. He turns his head back, smiling quickly at his friend. Maybe Blackie didn’t hear it. 

“Yo. Pick up that rock over there.”

“This one?”

“No douche. The big one right there.”

“Oh.”

“Give it over.”

T turns the rock in his hand, feeling the weight of it. He walks to the left of the entrance way and looks in the window. Presses his hand between his forehead and the glass, trying to see inside. He looks back at Blackie, shrugs his shoulders and smashes the rock through.

“Holy shit.”

“Nobody home.”

T reaches in through the hole carefully to avoid sharp edges. The latch is too far up for his short arm to reach.

“Shit man. I can’t get it. I’ll just break the rest, I guess.”

“No. Wait.” Blackie walks back over and grabs the doorknob. It turns in his hand and swings inward, creaking on its hinges. “Unlocked.”