Sunruined: Horror Stories (8 page)

Gina and her father have finished loading all of her stuff into the moving van. She sticks a stick of Samuel’s opium incense between the floorboards, lighting it and one of his clove cigarettes with the same match. She looks at his painting on an easel positioned in front of the window. She’s never liked his paintings but when they first met he seemed to handle her with the same passion and care as he did those horrid canvases. As she looks out the window she sees the mill sitting like a cancer on the hill. Black smoke pours from one of the hideous brown smokestacks.

‘That’s odd,’ she thinks. She figures a homeless guy has probably found a furnace and started a fire in it.

“Gina, honey, it’s all packed!” her father calls up the stairway.

“Coming, Dad!” she calls back.

Gina crushes the clove on the floor and leaves the incense burning as she crosses the room and closes the door on the smoke of Samuel.

Sad Clown, Kentucky

1.

Moments of clarity. A fleeting moment when everything makes sense. An instant when a decision is made. A life-altering decision. Charles Zasper had a moment like that. It wasn’t the moment he found his mother dead. No, his moment of clarity, his epiphany, came later. But it couldn’t have happened if his mother had not died. In fact, he would realize later, perhaps to relieve himself of any guilt he felt, that everything had to happen exactly the way it did for him to get where it was he was going.

2.

Charles Zasper was not an extraordinary man and the circumstances that brought him to live with his mother were not extraordinary circumstances. In the life of Charles Zasper, things just happened. And, up to a point, they happened in an ordinary fashion.

Charlie graduated from Oretown High School in southwestern Ohio with average grades. He selected an average community college to attend, planning on majoring in computer science when he finished his requirements. When he was twenty, he met an average woman, although it took him a while to realize she was average. It was also when he was twenty that he dropped out of school and went to work in one of Oretown’s many factories. It wasn’t a spectacularly high-paying factory, for those did exist in Oretown. It was an average factory, a paper mill that made boxes for White Castle restaurants that paid average wages and had average benefits.

Charlie and his wife, Nora, bought a house in one of Oretown’s many average suburbs. There they ate, slept, fucked, argued, and talked about having kids. But Charlie had a low sperm count. Even
they
give a lackluster performance, he sometimes thought. When he was twenty-five, Charlie and Nora went through an average divorce. They had simply grown tired of one another. The good days were no longer good enough to cancel out the bad ones. Charlie quit his job at the paper mill and moved in with his mother. Between his half of the divorce settlement that came from selling the house and splitting the money in half and his mother’s social security, Charlie didn’t figure he’d have to work again for a long time, if he lived modestly.

Which was good, because Mother was getting on in years and Charlie didn’t really have any intention of ever working again. He didn’t see the point in it. It felt like he was working for somebody else. Besides, Mother needed somebody to look after her. Ever since Charlie’s dad died when he was twelve, Mother had been fiercely independent. But now it was nice to have someone go to the store for her, or make out the bills, or help with some of the more laborious upkeep of the house. Charlie was that person. It was something he didn’t mind doing. He loved his mother and it was nice to spend time with her before she died. It was clear she was going to die soon. At least, it was clear to her.

“The beautiful place is calling my name, Charlie,” she would say. He didn’t really want to hear it. He didn’t want to think about her dying but he knew it was inevitable.

Charlie spent most of his time at Mother’s house stoned during the day and drunk in the evening, watching television and reading books. Well, he had started out splicing his TV watching with reading but then he realized most of the books he had thought he enjoyed contained stuff he didn’t really want to think about. The television was different, though. It didn’t really matter what was on, Charlie watched it. Day after day, he sat frozen in front of the TV. Sometimes he laughed only to wonder, a couple of minutes later, what it was he was laughing at. Sometimes, whole days would pass and, when he went to bed at night, Charlie had no recollection of what happened that day. Well, he’d watched TV all day, of course. But what had he watched? He couldn’t remember. The talking heads simply ate away his memory. So from the time he moved back in with Mother until she died was really one long continuous daze.

3.

Mother died on March 23rd. Charlie knew she was dead when he went into the kitchen and saw that the coffee hadn’t been made. Mother always made the coffee at 6:30 in the morning, just like she had when Charlie’s dad was alive and Charlie was rushing off to elementary school. Without fail Charlie was greeted, every morning, with the aroma of Mother’s strong coffee. It was a welcome scent and the absence of it that morning stopped him cold.

Hurriedly, he went about making the coffee himself, as though it could revive the dead. He knew it was hopeless, but it was like the whole house was lopsided and insane without that scent. Once the coffee was on, maybe he could think a little bit. Maybe it would get some of those cobwebs out of his head.

While the coffee brewed, he crossed the house to Mother’s bedroom. The door was slightly ajar. It was always slightly ajar when she was in it. It came from pushing the door against the frame but not hard enough to make it click shut. The slight unevenness of the old house caused the door to creep back into her room.

Mother was slightly cold to the touch. He watched her chest for any rising and falling. He checked her pulse. He held the back of his hand against her nose and mouth. Nothing. She was right, Charlie thought. She knew she was going to die. It was just a couple of nights ago she had warned Charlie about her black dreams—black cars, black curtains, black horses, and black seas. Shadow children calling from outside her window, wanting her to come out and play. And now the blackness had settled over her. It had drowned her and it wasn’t going to cough her back up.

Charlie went to call the hospital and then decided not to. Maybe he should have some coffee first. Smoke some pot to calm his nerves. Pick up the house a little bit. Mother would hate anyone being in the house when it looked the way it did.

Later that evening, Charlie went to the phone again. This time he figured he’d better call the police but, picking up the phone, he couldn’t do it. He was too drunk and high to handle the house being filled with cops and paramedics.

He went back into his mother’s room. It felt colder than the rest of the house. Outside, the March winds rampaged, slinging icy rain against the window. Charlie pulled the quilt, something his mother had made herself, up to her chin. He sat down on the edge of the bed, put his face in his hands, and cried. For some reason, he couldn’t see her as completely dead until she was in the ground. He imagined her spirit stuck in some kind of middle-ground, trying to reach her beautiful place. He hoped she could find it. He didn’t want to leave her side. Not that night anyway. He went to her nightstand and rummaged until he found the only two books she ever read. One was the Bible and the other was a beat up historical romance paperback. Alternating, he read her passages from both of them. There were times when it felt awkward, reading the romance passages to his mother, but it was better than trying to think of something to say.

Some time just before dawn, Charlie got tired. He put the books on the nightstand, kissed his mother on the forehead and, pulling her door tightly shut, he went out into the living room to fall asleep in front of the television. He wouldn’t open her door again for nearly a month.

4.

He woke up the next afternoon and contemplated calling someone about Mother again. Before he even got up to go to the phone, Charlie realized that an interesting sort of paranoid paralysis now crawled through his veins. If he called someone, wouldn’t they know how long his mother had been dead? And wouldn’t they find it peculiar he hadn’t called them yesterday, as soon as he found her? Wouldn’t it be considered gross abuse of a corpse or something? Christ, he didn’t want to go to jail.

Eventually, Charlie settled down into a fogged routine. Every day, he tried to forget he was ignoring the fact that something had to be done about Mother. He woke up, made the coffee and took a daily trip to Hapsburg’s Corner Store to buy wine and cigarettes. At first, he just bought one bottle of wine but then he found himself going for three and then four. He smoked five packs of cigarettes a day.

All day, he sat on the couch in front of the television, ripped on wine and laughing like a madman, a cigarette always burning between his fingers. The morning after he woke up with headaches and a persistent cough, wondering why he felt that way and proceeding to do the same things over. He didn’t turn on any lights save the flickering glow of the TV. He didn’t open any blinds. He couldn’t recall eating anything. For nearly a month and it really felt much longer, it felt like the only life he knew, Charlie lived like this.

5.

It wasn’t until a day in late April that Charlie had his epiphany. Actually, it was like several small epiphanies leading up to one huge revelation.

The day began like any other day. He woke up. He made his coffee, took the pot into the living room with him and sat in front of the television. Shortly after noon, he went to Hapsburg’s. This time he just needed wine. There was still a half a carton of Lucky Strikes back at the house so he wouldn’t need any more for at least a day. He jingled the door open at Hapsburg’s and went along his predestined route, staring down at the tiles peeling back on the yellow water-stained floor. Charlie always wondered how it was the health department never managed to close Hapsburg’s down. Charlie liked it because it was convenient, but he didn’t think he would ever buy any food from there. But it was all right for wine and Charlie loaded up his arms, carrying the bottles to the front counter.

As always, old Hapsburg was there. Charlie had never figured out his first name. Charlie also realized he never made eye contact with old Hapsburg. Usually, the transaction took place with Charlie staring at his chest until the old man held out his gnarled hand to give him change. Today, however, Charlie looked up at old Hapsburg. What he saw made him stumble back a couple of steps, only far enough to where he could loop his arms out and seize the wine bottles.

It looked like Hapsburg had aged to the point of death. His once ruddy complexion was now a chalky gray. His wrinkles had become trench-like furrows cutting through that pallor. And his eyes, when Charlie met them, were a milky white. “Thank you,” Hapsburg said before his eyes turned black, some type of fetid pus rolling out and onto his cheeks, diverted by the wrinkles around his mouth.

Charlie was speechless. Not bothering to reach out for the change, he pulled the bottles in close and charged out the door, his heart beating harder than it had in a long time. He didn’t slow down until he was at the corner and across the street.
What the hell?
he thought.

Once across the street, he slowed down. On one hand, Charlie was terrified. On the other hand, he felt more alive than he had in years. Adrenaline sparkled through him. His skin felt hot against his clothes. His heart leaped around in his chest.

All around him it was a nice day. The electricity of spring held on. Overhead, a bruised mass of clouds floated rapidly across the sky but, here and there, he could catch the blue behind the clouds and it was magnificent.

Charlie paused at the next corner, looking around at the blooming trees and the early stages of the neighborhood’s gardens. He breathed in the air, a rare fresh and clean scent for Oretown. It was only clean, he figured, because it came from some other place. He imagined the flat farmlands of Indiana. Off to his right, he saw a woman ambling from a few yards away. She pushed a baby carriage and it looked like she had on a short skirt. Charlie found himself vaguely aroused. He had forgotten how good it felt to be in that state, even if it just meant going home and jerking off over the sink.

The woman drew closer. She seemed, in fact, to be coming at a somewhat alarming rate. As she closed the distance between them, the terror Charlie felt back at Hapsburg’s came back. The woman was almost right on him now and he saw that she wasn’t attractive at all. She was emaciated and deathly, tight brown mummified skin wrapped around her bones. Her hair hung in dirty strands and clumps. She smelled like decay. She stopped the carriage just in front of Charlie and turned to look at him. Her eyes were black sockets. Yellow pus oozed from her blunted, truncated nose. She put up a hand to one withered breast and lasciviously rolled her green tongue out to Charlie.

Forgetting himself, he bent over the baby carriage to vomit. Inside was a stillborn, its purple body drawn up, an umbilical cord ascending to who knew where. Charlie let go with the puke, wanting only to be away, and felt the baby’s sinister soft stroking of his cheek.

Charlie uprighted himself and took off running. He was only a couple of blocks from home. Ducking off into an alleyway between two shops, he pulled to a panting stop. Christ, he felt like he was dying.

Looking up at the sky, he saw the sun desperately trying to break free from those heavy clouds, lining their contours with a glaring white gold.

“What the hell are you trying to do to me!” he shouted. He didn’t know if he was yelling at God or Mother or his whole sad life. “What the
fuck
am I supposed to do?!” The amazing thing was that he felt capable of doing something, anything.

He pulled a wine bottle out from his jacket. Rearing back his arm he threw it as high up in the air as he could, aiming it right at the clouds. He heard it pop on one of the roofs. Charlie imagined his blood spewing from the shattered dark green glass.

“Why don’t you let the sun go, you little shits!”

He threw the second bottle. “She could burn you up if she wanted to!” Charlie threw the third and then the fourth before he took off running back toward the house, chasing down the cloud shadows racing along the asphalt.