Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories (23 page)

He felt the sudden urge to cough then, as something pushed its way from his stomach, up his esophagus; something with mass, something writhing.

His lips parted almost on their own, and he belched up a great bubble of foul-smelling gas and a cloud of insects—tiny flies that flew out from between his clenched teeth and a squirming tangle of worms and maggots that plopped to the asphalt in a pool of mucilaginous slime.

Scott tried to draw in a breath. He desperately needed to scream. But he couldn’t. Nothing in his body seemed to be under his control anymore, and he remained frozen, bent over the pavement, looking at his body there before him, his
other
body.

His
real
body, he knew.

Just then a hand appeared in his field of view, and he looked up.

It was Flattop, reaching to him.

Scott shakily lifted his own hand, clasped the boy’s.

And it was over, as quickly as it had begun.

Scott was standing there, whole again, not leaking any fluids, not feeling any of the overwhelming pain he’d felt moments ago.

He gasped in a breath, felt his knees buckle in overwhelming relief.

And the kids, all of them, rushed to him, kept him on his feet. When they felt sure he was able to stand on his own again, they stepped away, slowly.

Except for Flattop. He kept hold of Scott’s hand, but gently.

“Sorry for that, but you sorta had to know,” he said.

“I’m . . .
dead
,” Scott said, more to hear it spoken from his own mouth than for any other reason.

The four kids looked at him with a stern sadness in their eyes, even the angry little kid.

“So now what?” Scott said, noticing that things had gone quiet around them. The car, the screaming lady, his own dead body were gone. The road was still there, as were the store and the parking lot, but the rest of it faded the farther away from this little tableau it got, obscured by what looked like a heavy fog.

What was left had the feel of an empty stage, the audience gone, the props put away, the actors taking one last look.

“Now we leave,” Flattop said, gesturing off into the grey void.

“To go . . .
where
?” Scott asked, suddenly realizing what this all truly meant.

Realizing where he
wasn’t
going, where he’d never go again.

“To the other side, kid, the other world . . . the larger world.”

Scott panicked for a second.

He wasn’t ready. This wasn’t right.

He needed . . . he needed to go home,
his
home, if only for a moment.

If only to see . . .

He remembered something, dug into his pockets to find it.

The baseball cards he’d stuffed in there earlier that morning fell from his pocket, scattered across the fading asphalt.

He dug deeper, pulled one out, held it up to Flattop.

If there’s a problem . . .

“My mom gave this to me. I want to see her before I go,” he said, holding one of the two quarters up before Flattop.

The boy eyed the quarter somberly, his eyes narrowing.

“Your mother is wise,” he said, and his voice held a tone, an edge that didn’t sound as if it belonged to any boy, 15 years old or otherwise. It had the weight of ages behind it, and for a moment, Scott was afraid the older boy would simply snatch the coin from his hand, leave him there alone in that dwindling oasis of reality.

Flattop sighed, and did reach out to take the coin, gently, sliding it into the front pocket of his jeans.

He turned to the other children. “Go on ahead and prepare the way. I’ll be along presently.”

The three kids mounted their bikes and sped away without a word, disappearing into the mist like horsemen in a western.

Flattop turned back to Scott. “This will hurt more than the three touches you endured. Do you understand this?”

Scott bit his lip.

“I wanna see my mom.”

“You are here,” Flattop said, and the mist receded, revealing the front lawn of Scott’s house, the porch, the front door. But nothing else emerged from the fog, and the whole scene had a weird, twilight aura about it.

Flattop nodded toward the house, and Scott climbed off the bike, let it fall silently to the grey grass. He bounded from it, pushed through the front door, slid into the hallway, his sneakers squeaking on the floor.

“Mom!” he yelled, and his voice seemed to echo through long, invisible corridors, fading slowly. “Mom!”

He found he was breathing hard, could feel the beat of his anxious heart tremble through his body. It seemed so strange to have these feelings in death, but he pushed that aside.

It didn’t matter . . . not right now.

“Scotty?” he heard a small voice. “Is that you?”

“Mom!”

“I’m here, baby.”

Scott dashed down the hallway into the family room. It looked dim here, colorless and unreal. He could see the carpet, the texture of the couch, the pictures on the mantel, on the walls, but they seemed fake, almost like illustrations of the real thing.

And there she was, curled atop the couch—one hand tucked beneath, one hand extended over her head—sleeping.

He went to her, knelt beside her, took her hand in his.

Scott could feel her, feel the muscles of her hand, the bones, feel the warmth of her blood and the beat of her heart and her slow, easy respiration.

“Mom,” he said, burying his head in her shoulder. He could smell her—the clean scent of her shampoo, the familiar cachet of her soap, her perfume. She ran her hands through his hair, and he closed his eyes, felt them well up.

“I was so worried,” she murmured, kissing his head. “You and that bike.”

“I’m here now, Mom,” he said, raising his head. “But I’ve got to go.”

Scott saw her frown, but also noticed that she hadn’t opened her eyes, hadn’t really awakened.

“Go? Where do you need to go, honey?” she asked, and he felt her hands tighten on him.

“I need to go . . . away. Sorry. I’m sorry . . . but I’ve got to go.”

“When will you be back?” she said, her voice sounding small.

Scott opened his mouth to say something . . . but could not find the words.

So, he leaned in and kissed his mother on the cheek, rested his forehead on hers.

“Why do you have to go?” she whispered in his ear.

“It’s time, I guess. My time. But don’t worry. I’m okay, it’s just that . . . well . . . it’s okay, I guess.”

“I don’t want you to leave honey.”

“And I don’t want to leave, Mom. But it’s not as bad as I thought . . . I mean . . . I’ll miss you and everything, but . . . ”

“But what, sweetheart?” she asked, her voice breaking.

Scott pulled away from her, looked at her sleeping face and smiled though she couldn’t see it.

“It seems easy, Mom, really. I mean, easy to give it up.”

“Easy? Scotty, how is it easy?”

“I didn’t have it for very long, Mom.”

Scott kissed her again, each cheek, her forehead. As he rose, he felt her hands slip from his hair, caress his face as they fell away.

That memory, more than anything else, was the one he’d carry with him.

“I love you, Mom,” he said, and he wasn’t sure if the fog had crept into the house or if his eyes were clouded with tears.

Both, really.

“I love you, too Scotty. I always will,” his mother breathed, snuggling back down into the couch. “I always will.”

Scott stepped away slowly, made his way to the front door.

Turning, he looked back at the curl of his mother on the couch.

“Mom?”

“Yes, Scotty?” she murmured, sinking slowly into the dream world he’d roused her from.

“Don’t be too hard on Dad . . . about the bike. I loved it . . . every minute of it. Please tell him that I love him, too.”

With that, he stepped through the front door and out onto the lawn.

Flattop was there, waiting.

Scott scrubbed the heel of his hand across his eyes, cleared the tears there.

“Now, we need to go,” Flattop said, holding out his hand to Scott.

For a moment, Scott was confused. Then, he knew.

He slid his hand into his pocket, fished out the remaining quarter his mother had given him.

He dropped it into Flattop’s outstretched palm, lifted his bike from the grass.

Looking down, he was surprised to see the baseball cards were back, pristine and whole, clipped so that they clacked against the spokes.

***

Can I ask you a question, here at the end?

Sure. At this point, though, you might know the answer better than me.

Can you tell me how to let go of something? Something precious?

Simple. You don’t . . . not really. You take it with you, hold it in your heart, in your memories.

Forever.

***

The flattop kid mounted his bike, and led them away.

Scott followed him into the grey nothingness.

Into everything.

CELLAR’S DOG

Amanda Gowin

If only the Internet hadn’t gone out and sent her tapping her boyfriend’s number, if only she and Will hadn’t stopped at Logan and Chrissy’s for a dime bag, if only Douglas and Irving Cellar hadn’t been planted in the middle of that sagging sofa like two jagged teeth in a brown microfiber grin, if only Doug Cellar hadn’t been ripe for a larger audience and flashing baggies—a magician rolling temptation over and under his knuckles with winks and taunts at Will—Laticia Deal wouldn’t be shackled into the loose circle of a makeshift Friday night party. She could tick ifs on her fingers until dawn, but it didn’t bring her any closer to the door or make time pass faster.

Far as she could tell, the clock had been sitting at quarter to midnight since she fell into the circle and the cluttered coffee table snapped a bracelet on her ankle.

“Fucking monster, is what he is,” Douglas Cellar wrapped his thick fingers around the pipe and coughed around a cloud of smoke. “Black as one of them movie-star coloreds.” He laughed and Logan laughed with him. Laticia twisted away from Will’s snaking Don’t Say Nothing grip, and she tried not to look at Doug’s son, Irving. “Me and the boy was up huntin’ offa the Ball farm—back where they was logging—and caught it in a old bear trap. We just took it up there ‘cause we found it in Pap’s shed, think he used it to trap beaver,” Doug looked at Laticia and grinned. “Didn’t expect nothing to come of it.”

A box fan pointing outward rattled in the window, sucking a little of the smoke and static electricity from the living room, but not enough to breathe easy or see clearly.

“Took what up where?” Chrissy was stretched like a lizard over the recliner, and opened her eyes a slit to take the pipe as it came her way.

“The trap, whatcha think?” Logan snapped, and reached past the boy to turn on the flat screen. He punched up the game on the PlayStation and tossed the second controller to Will. War filled the room, the canned sound of killing, the speaker so close to the boy’s head Laticia wondered if he could hold a thought but the sound of guns. Laticia came close to eye contact, but spun her head when she caught herself drifting below his pale eyebrows. She hit the pipe and clanged it, cashed, on the glass coffee table.

“Daddy—”

“Hush. But we caught him, alright. Damn near skinned his back paw like a glove, but I had a grain sack over his head before he could pull loose. I tied him and tossed him in the back and we lit out—nothin’ we done wrong, just wanted to get that beast home.”

“Why? Whatcha gonna do with some wild dog? Besides get rabies,” Chrissy tittered laughter over the sound of the guns, and stretched further, Chester Cheetah’s faded ears and sunglasses peeking over the edge of her top.

Doug raised his grey eyebrows and laid a look on Chrissy like she was a pitiful creature indeed. “Why go into space? Why grow an ear on a rat’s back?”

“What the fuck—”

“He means ‘cause he can, Chrissy,” Logan said, eyes never leaving the screen, fingers working the controller like a master pianist. “Whatcha reckon, Doug? Fightin’ him, or trainin’ him to hunt?”

“Fuck if I know,” Doug grinned with the glee of a mad scientist. “We trimmed him up nice, like they do them pit bulls. Took a chunk outta me,” He spread his palm toward them. Around the punctures of few-day-old teeth marks, Laticia looked to see if his lifeline ended anytime soon. Looked for some sign of Children’s Services, DEA, DUI in his future.

Saw only the invincibility of the very mad.

“Fuck your dog.”

Logan opened his mouth to snap at Chrissy but shifted his eyes enough to see she was crinkling powder straight onto the coffee table and that was alright; he kept with the game.

She pushed herself back into the cushions of the dirty futon and concentrated on not looking at the kid. Elbowing Will, she screamed with the bone she shoved in his ribs
We gotta get outta here
, but he took it for play and elbowed her back.

Laticia looked from the lines Chrissy was cutting and straight into the eyes of the boy, who read her plainly. His eyes were like saucers, blue as a pilot light, and with one slow, accepting blink he told her,
There ain’t no getting out
. Laticia dropped her gaze to his laced fingers, and saw how white the knuckles were. Against his knee rested the knee of his daddy, and Douglas Cellar laced his own hands.