Amid the Recesses: A Short Story Collection of Fear (4 page)

I thought about the fat kid on the
bike. I thought about his foul-mouthed friend. I thought about the
old man in the dusty shop. I thought about the skeptic cop. I
thought about merry Mortimer and jubilant Judith. I thought about
the little girl in the blue dress. I thought about the poor
boy.

“
You know, curiosity killed
the cat.” I felt cliché. I felt excited and sick with myself. I
knew the expression was lost on the boy. I examined the blade from
the hilt to the tip and admired it. So simple, like the
boy.

“
I ain’t got no cat.” The
boy said.

I nodded. “I
know.”

Cleanliness was important.
I swung countless times. It became increasingly difficult to remain
clean. Blood stained the walls. Blood stained the old carpets. I
stood speckled like modern art in front of what was left of the boy
when I was done. I wiped the edge of the blade on the racecar
bed.

“
Vroom.” I said as the
blood smeared across the blade and blankets.

I stepped toward the door
of the boy’s room, but stopped in front of the bathroom towel that
I dropped.
Home Sweet
Home
. I looked back at the boy.

“
I wish she would have
taught you some manners, little man.”

I started down the steps.
They were easier to traverse without a trunk in tow. Judith’s
voice, a hollow murmur from inside of the boy’s room, became
clearer as I descended the stairs. Bloody tracks marked my path
from the room upstairs.

Judith, with a near-psychic intuition
shouted, “Com’on down, honeypot! You’re going to love what I’m
cooking up. Yes, you are!” Judith continued singing after the
announcement. I assumed she was on verse fifty-three.

“
I’m coming!” I left
another bloody stamp in the carpet as I neared the bottom step. “I
have something for you too!” I shouted. 

Judith didn’t hear me. The
clowns in the living room watched me with disgust.

“
Oh, we’re judgmental now?
Like you all wouldn’t have done it.” I scolded. The clowns seemed
sadder than before.

I wiped a hand across my
wet face. I held my hand in front of me for examination. The wet,
warm blood dripped to the ground in front of me, tapping on the toe
of my shoes.
Tap. Tap.
My eyes shot to the rocking ceiling fan.
Tap. Tap.
I closed my hand into a
fist and stepped toward the kitchen.

I waited outside the
threshold to the kitchen with my back to the wall and painted the
wallpaper flowers red to match everything else. I noticed the girl
in the blue dress swinging on the porch swing just outside the
window. Sounds intensified. The swing’s chains creaked and groaned
as they tugged at the house’s foundation. The floors creaked as
Judith’s body leaned from one side to the other in the kitchen. Her
singing…

Are you washed in the
blood? Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?

I stepped into the kitchen as Judith
bobbed back and forth like a buoy on water. Her form jiggled and
swayed under the blasphemous floral dress. She faced away and
tended to the stove.

I joined in. “Are you
washed in the blood? Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?” I
followed her lead. I tapped the flat edge of the machete against my
thigh to the beat.
Tap. Tap.

Judith’s hands went into
the air as she heard me behind her. We had all the talent of a
freshmen chorus. She waved her hands back and forth with the wooden
sauce spoon in one of them. Soup this way. Soup that way. I
wondered if she felt Jesus in that room. I wondered if I could help
her if she didn’t.

“
Are you washed in the
blood—“ She turned around with a painted smile. When she saw me
covered from head to toe in blood, she dropped the sauce spoon and
covered her mouth. She wailed in a scream.

I lifted the machete high into the air
and swung.

“—
of”

I swung.

“—
the”

I swung.

“—
lamb!”

The machete was stuck. I rotated
around Judith’s heap trying to dislodge it.

“
Not now. Com’on! I’m not
done yet.”

The machete wouldn’t give. Judith had
the last laugh, with her wide open mouth, lipstick double or triple
coated around it. Clowns.

“
You
think you’re
so
funny.”

I picked up the wooden sauce spoon
from the ground and waved it in front of Judith’s stone cold,
smiling face.

“
Then I’m taking this, huh!
Keep the thing. My gift to you, you old hag. For the—“ I spun
around and looked at the stove. A pot full of red, greasy soup
bubbled. “—soup.”

I stood over the pot and
took in a deep breath. There were no rolling eyeballs or bobbing
goat testicles. The oily slick surface migrated like amoeba in
water.

“
All that work.” I dipped
the sauce spoon into the soup, stirred it, and brought it to my
mouth. “It’s the least I can do, Judy.” I took it in. The soup was
salty. An aftertaste hugged my tongue and reminded me of potent
cough medicine. I spit what little remained in my mouth on the
ground next to Judith.

“
Not so good, Judith.” I
grabbed a hold of the machete hilt again and pulled. Judith’s dead
body rose and fell with each tug and release. Sloppy, wet sounds
came from below her. “Just give me my—“ The weapon finally gave and
sent me back against the stove.

“
Ah, sh—“ The heat, the
smell, the blood, it all caught up with me. I looked up and noticed
the girl in the blue dress. She stood at the threshold of the
kitchen with a hand over her mouth. Like mother like daughter. Her
eyes were screaming, but her mouth could not.

I stepped with one long
stride over Judith’s body and closer to the girl. “Calm down. I
know this seems bad.” I said. It was an incredible
understatement.

The girl turned around and
ran from the kitchen screaming. She burst through the screen door.
The tight springs of the door fought back, but gave to her
momentum. I chased her swiftly at first, but slowed as I slid
toward the carpeted living room.

“
Whoa.” I steadied and
grabbed the wooden trim around the opening to the kitchen. Dark
green paint crusted and flaked from the surface. “Com’on back now!
It’s fine!”

My stomach groaned. The
soup. The chocolate from earlier. I followed the girl’s path out
the door. The clowns were more skittish on the way out. They might
have known they could have been next. I stepped out on to the
patio. The girl was running out toward Mortimer’s truck with her
hands in the air.

“
Back already?” I said to
myself. There was no way Mortimer could have fixed the SUV already.
I looked down and was embarrassed by myself. I was bloodied from
head to toe. I didn’t know what blood was mine and what blood
wasn’t. It didn’t matter. I had a sauce spoon in one hand and a
machete in the other as I descended the few steps from the patio. I
continued toward the truck. The truck stopped suddenly and Mortimer
leapt from the seat and ran toward his screaming
daughter.

“
He killed mom! He killed
mom! I saw it! Oh Lord, I saw it!” The girl screamed and
cried.

Mortimer was confused. He
took his daughter into his arms and watched me. He was speechless.
I whistled Judith’s song as I stepped through the high grass. Each
blade of grass leaned with the wind in an attempt to dodge me as I
approached. As I neared, the girl squeezed tighter against her
chubby father. With each step Mortimer’s face reddened. When I
arrived, I paused in front of both of them and left my arms slack
at my sides.

“
W-What have you done?”
Tears welled in Mortimer’s eyes as he looked me over—as he looked
over the blood and the gore that hung from me like tinsel on a
tree.

“
I know, I know. I didn’t
want it to be this way, but he opened the box.” I shrugged and
half-smiled.

“
W-What?” Mortimer shook
his head.

“
Com’on Mortimer!” My hands
lifted and gestured over myself. “Ain’t seen a little blood
before?”

RETURN TO THE TABLE OF
CONTENTS

Black and White

“
Ocular albinism.” Doctor
Olsen stated as a pen light moved back and forth between Mark
Branson’s bright blue eyes.

Mark squinted each time the
light passed. The pen’s light descended upon him like an alien
abduction. “That’s what they say, doctor.” Mark whispered, mindful
of his proximity to the doctor. The light beamed by
again.

Doctor Olsen nodded and
lowered the light. He returned to the black leather seat across
from Mark and lowered himself into it. He picked up his notepad and
wrote observations. “Interesting, Mr. Branson. I’ve never seen this
condition before. Of course, it’s not in my realm of expertise to
assess conditions like ocular albinism. I’m a psychiatrist.” Doctor
Olsen looked up from his writing and smiled. He placed the pen flat
on the notepad, vertical to the margin and perpendicular to the
light blue lines. Doctor Olsen was eased by the arrangement. “So,
why don’t we talk about why you’re here?”

Mark shifted
uncomfortably.

Doctor Olsen closed the
blinds to the office before bringing Mark in. The natural light
usually calmed his patients. Today, the light was a nuisance. The
darkness brought little peace in lieu of the question.

“
It’s always been this way,
doctor. Same when I was kid. It came in waves. On and off. Like a
light.” Mark considered the irony of that comparison.

Doctor Olsen referred to
the notepad. “I have here that you see things, Mark. That you see
things others don’t because of your condition?”

Mark shrugged. “You know,
when I was a kid, I had to stay inside a lot. I didn’t get to play
with the kids outside, doctor. I didn’t do the things normal kids
did.” Mark sunk into the leather chair that mirrored Doctor
Olsen’s. “One time, I remember sitting inside of the homeroom of
one of my classes. We had a substitute teacher that day. Someone
told her about this.” Mark gestured to his eyes. “I guess she
forgot. Recess came and she went outside. She turned the lights off
and I kept coloring whatever I was working on at the time. After
realizing she’d left me in the dark room, she lost it. She kept
telling me how sorry she was. Then she saw that I finished coloring
the page. I remember her asking me, ‘Mark, did you do this in the
dark?’ I told her I did. It wasn’t a thing, right? She thought it
was a thing, so she told my parents. Surprised now she didn’t get
fired over it.” Mark laughed. His fingers grazed the leather arm of
the chair. “So, a few tests were done on me. Seems I can see pretty
well in the dark.” Mark pointed at his right eye. “These eyes.
That’s why. At least that’s what they tell me.”

Doctor Olsen listened and
leaned in. He was fascinated by the story. “So the tests confirmed
that you have a gift too?”

Mark laughed. “A gift?
Well, that depends on what you call a gift, doctor.” Mark stood up
and stepped behind the chair. He imitated a baseball pitch. “Like
being able to pitch a one-hundred mile per hour fastball—that’s a
gift. That sort of gift would have me playing in the Major League.
This ‘gift’ of mine’s going to put me in a padded room.” Mark
descended deeper into the room and deeper into its darkness. Potted
plants bowed without their courtesan sun. Sounds amplified. The hum
of cars outside of the office droned.

“
Mark, you assaulted
someone. You’re here because of a court order. Let’s talk about
that.”

“
Right.” Mark returned to
the chair and placed his hands on the back it. He squeezed the
padding. “It’s not like I just pounce on people, doctor. I’m a
pretty easy-going person. I couldn’t ignore it. It was instinct.
You know about instinct, doctor?”

“
Yes.”

“
You would have done it
too, doctor, if you saw what I saw.”

“
And what did you see,
Mark?”

“
Children. Four of them.”
Mark shook his head. “Let me back up.”

Doctor Olsen’s eyes
narrowed.

“
It was just another day at
the office, doctor. I usually avoid the elevator. It’s just a
thing, you know? I don’t like tight spaces.”

“
Are you claustrophobic?”
Doctor Olsen asked.

“
No, no. Nothing like that.
I don’t like the inaccessibility of it all. It’s kind of like being
in a car, you know?”

The doctor shook his head.

“
When you’re in an
elevator, you have no control. You’re trapped in a space. You
hope—just hope—that everything works, right? Because if something
goes wrong with that elevator, you’re fucked.” Mark said. He stood
straight again. Lines of sunlight barcoded Mark’s body, cast from
between the closed blinds.

“
I suppose it would be a
predicament, yes.”

“
When you’re driving a car,
it’s easy to have this sense that you’re in control, but you’re
not. Yeah, you have a steering wheel.” Mark’s hands rose in front
of him and he pantomimed gripping an imaginary wheel. “You direct
where you’re going. Kind of like hitting a button on an elevator,
right? But what about all the other factors? You’re on a two-lane
highway and out of nowhere—BAM!” Mark shouted and clapped his hands
together.