Nancy Goats (Delirium Novella Series) (6 page)

15. Billy Goat Gruff

Panther Joey unlocked the door from top to bottom and opened it.

Paco tried to push through, but Panther Joey barred the way with a thick muscular arm.

“Whoa, little fella. What’s going on?”

Tears ran down Paco’s cheeks. His face was puffy and red. He tried hard to push away from Panther Joey, but he couldn’t dislodge the other’s grip, at least not with his arm and ribs still bothering him.

“What the hell’s gotten into you?”

“What did you do with them?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“The others? Lilly? The Mound? B.J.?”

Paco felt Panther Joey relax his grip. He took advantage and brought his elbow up into the hollow below the boy’s chin. Panther Joey’s head snapped back against the wall. As he fell to the floor, he released his grip on Paco.

Paco ran down the hall. Daddy Pain stood in front of the sliding glass door. He wore a red Family Pain shirt and board shorts. Brett stood beside him wearing the same.

“Stop him.” Daddy Pain pointed at Paco.

Brett moved and in one motion, using Paco’s momentum, wrapped his arms around the good arm and Paco’s neck to immobilize him.

Paco kicked out with his feet, but all Brett did was lift him higher so that his kicks had nothing on them.

“Where are they?” Paco gasped.

“Who? What are you talking about?” asked Daddy Pain.

“He means B.J.,” Brett said.

“Ahh. Him.” Daddy Pain nodded. “That goat died,” he said matter-of-factly.

“What?” Paco struggled. “He couldn’t have. I was just talking to him.”

“What are you talking about?”

“B.J.—he was just there. I talked to him. I saw his blankets move.”

“You saw his blankets move?” Daddy Pain glanced at Brett and grinned. “How much Vicodin did you give him?”

Brett held up two fingers, but he wasn’t smiling like his father was.

Paco reversed the move and threw Brett back against his father. But that’s as much as he did. He stayed where he was holding up his good hand. “Don’t—please. I’m not going to run.” He looked from father to son, willing them not to attack him. “I just want to know what happened. Where’d you take them?”

Daddy Pain’s eyes narrowed. “Them?”

“Yes. Them. B.J., Lilly, Mikey, The Mound, Tiki…
them
.”

“How do you know about
them
?” Daddy Pain asked in a whisper, worry creeping into his frown.

“B.J. must have told him,” Brett said

Paco shook his head. “No, they told me themselves. I was just talking to The Mound.” When he saw the doubt in the other men’s eyes he added, “He told me he was from Israel. He said that he’d been a soldier.”

Paco suddenly heard the sound of the trampoline springs.
Boing
,
boing
,
boing
. He glanced towards the sliding glass door. He could run and if it was unlocked then he could—

“What did he say about me?” Fear surged across Daddy Pain’s face. “The Mound?”

“He said you’ve had him for seven years,” Paco said.

“Seven years,” Daddy Pain repeated. “He said that number?”

Paco nodded. He kept his eye on Brett, but the other made no move to grab him.

Daddy Pain turned thoughtful. “That would be about right, I suppose.”

“But Daddy, he died two years ago,” Brett said.

The sound of the trampoline got louder.

Panther Joey staggered into the kitchen holding his neck. “Sorry. He got past me.”

Daddy Pain shook his head, then moved across the room in three quick steps. He held out his arms for Panther Joey to enter. When the other did, it was too late to realize that there was to be no love. A twist and a snap and the light left Panther Joey’s eyes.

Brett stared at Panther Joey in shock. He tried to say something but his mouth wasn’t working. Finally, he looked to his dad. “Are you kidding me?”

“He let us all down.”

“But he was one of
us
. Like Randy. Like the Dudes.”

“They couldn’t keep their goats alive.”

“So you killed them? What kind of family kills its own children?”

“The loving kind.” Daddy Pain took a step and straddled Panther Joey’s body. “They were no good to us.”

“No good?” I suppose you call it tough love. What a crock of shit! Who’s going to punish
you
for The Mound? Huh? You killed the first one and nothing’s happened to you.”

“That didn’t count. He killed himself.” Daddy Pain lifted an eyebrow and balled his fist at his son. “Do you think you’re going to do something?”

Brett gaped at his father. “That’s all you have to say?” He thumped his chest with his fist. “I’m your son. Your real son.”

“Which is disappointing. I expected more of you.”

Brett let his mouth open for a moment, then snapped it shut. He shook his head as he turned. “I’m fucking out of here.”

Paco saw it happen before he could move. Daddy Pain launched himself at his son. They fell onto the dining room table. The glass exploded, sending them both onto the floor beneath the table shell.

The sound of the trampoline became even louder.

Daddy Pain and Brett fought, each searching desperately for a grip or a foothold around an ankle or knee. But as soon as one of them got a grip, the other would knock it away. They were using pure Brazilian Jujitsu. It was an even match. Although Daddy Pain was larger, Brett was faster.

They rolled towards the covered floor-to-ceiling windows. They rammed through a table leg. The table collapsed, catching Brett on his side and exploding the air from his lungs.

Daddy Pain took immediate advantage. He punched his son two more times in the solar plexus then drove an elbow into the spot under Brett’s left arm where a nerve cluster resided.

Brett screamed and lashed out with his legs. They became trapped in the drapes. At first the fabric held, but his pain’s only release was in his legs. The drapes came down, revealing a back yard cast in daylight so bright that Paco had to turn away and squint through the fingers of his hand. The little girl in white jumped happily on the trampoline, higher and higher.
Boing
,
boing
,
boing
.

“Daddy!” Brett screamed.

Then all was silent as his father broke his neck.

Paco sucked in his breath.

Daddy Pain pushed himself up from the floor. He was breathing heavily. Blood ran from his left nostril and there was a cut above his right eye.

“You,” he barked. “You are the last.” He wiped his lip with the back of a hand and stared at the blood. “Let’s end this.” He breathed heavily. “Once and for all let’s just fucking end this.”

Paco backed away. He hit the island in the middle of the kitchen. He could run out the back or try for the front, but that meant getting closer to Daddy Pain. He glanced down the hallway towards the goat pen.

“Oh, yes. Please—run.”

And Paco did.

He took off towards the pen. If he could get there and close the door in time, then maybe he could—

A blow struck him from behind and propelled him through the air and into the room. He crashed into the cots, the metal bars hammering into his ribs. His momentum carried him halfway across the room. When he came to a stop it was amidst a wreck of cots and blankets.

He moaned as he fought to get up.

“That’s the thing about goats,” Daddy Pain said, following Paco into the room. “There comes a time when they die anyway. Even after they’re fixed and taped and healed and sewn together, they eventually reach the point where they have to die, when we put them out of their misery.”

Paco felt a kick strike his kidney and lift him into the air. The pain was so intense it blinded him for a moment. When he hit the ground he didn’t even feel it through the scalding glow that had mushroom-clouded in his side.

“When the medic graduates he can’t exactly take the goat with him, can he? So either way the goat dies. That’s what happened to The Mound. I learned everything I could from him. He knew it. I knew it.”

Daddy Pain grabbed Paco by an ear and pulled him to a standing position. He screamed in Paco’s face. “Listen to me when I’m talking to you, goat!” Then he threw Paco against the wall.

Paco slid to a sitting position. In the background he heard two things: his heart beating and the sound of the trampoline. He could have sworn that they were both going
boing
and in synch
.

Daddy Pain stood in the middle of the room and stared at him. The cots had been knocked over and the blankets lay scattered.

“So how is it that you knew about The Mound? Was it Brett? Did he tell you to fuck with me about him?”

Paco wanted to tell Daddy Pain to
fuck off
, but all he could manage was a bubble of blood.

“And the others?” Daddy Pain glanced around. “We thought you all would know how to fight. I figured there was something about your kind that would make you mean. Keep you alive.”

Paco wanted to tell Daddy Pain that his kind was just like any other kind, but he only managed two bubbles. Then he noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye.

“But none of you were made to last. It’s not as if my boys were too hard on you either.” He giggled. “Because I showed them what happens when a medic kills their goats. I even gave some of them more than one chance. More chances than they deserved and what did they do?”

Paco groaned.

“Exactly. You kill the goat, you leave the family.”

A blanket suddenly puffed full on the floor next to Daddy Pain, as if someone had climbed beneath it. The blanket wriggled towards Daddy Pain. Daddy Pain must have felt something because his gaze darted towards his foot, which was now covered by a blanket. He tried to lift it, but it wouldn’t move. He tried to lift his other foot, then realized his mistake. His arms wind-milled as the blanket pushed his base out from under him.

Daddy Pain crashed to the floor.

Paco cheered but it was only bubbles of blood and foam.

Suddenly all the blankets except one took form and crept towards Daddy Pain. He lashed out, punching as best he could, but they had little effect. His hands kept getting trapped by the fabric of the blankets.

He screamed, when he opened his mouth, it was filled with the corner of a blanket.

Beneath the
boing, boing, boing
of Paco’s heart were voices. They became louder and louder until he could understand them as if they were speaking in normal voices.

“Chicken Taco, get over here,” Mikey said.

“Fuckers stay away from me” Daddy Pain groaned, managing to pull the blanket free from his mouth.

“We want you to finish it,” B.J. said.

The blankets were moving impossibly fast now, surging and roiling above Daddy Pain’s body. His shirt had been ripped open, revealing an immense tattoo of the special force’s logo. Beneath this was the cursive scrawl of the motto—
de oppresson liber—
free the oppressed.
Daddy Pain’s eyes were filled with madness.

Paco struggled to his knees.

“Hurts,” he managed to say.

“It will be all over soon,” said Tiki, his accent flowing over the words.

“Who’s there?” Daddy Pain’s eyes were covered by a blanket. “What are you doing?”

Paco saw that Daddy Pain’s hands were immobilized, held fast by blankets bulging with the imprint of fingers. His feet were held the same way.

The Mound raised himself under his blanket so that Paco could see beneath it. Darkness moved. “You need to finish.”

Paco stared hard at Daddy Pain. He remembered his own father when they’d fought that last time and he’d discovered that one day little girls grow up to be young men. They might be little girls at heart, but their bodies and muscles are all man and Paco used his new adulthood to defend himself against his father’s last attempt to burn something Paco had found to be precious, letters from a boy he’d met at summer camp. His father had had the same insane look of disbelief on his face that Daddy Pain wore now. Back then he’d decided not to continue hitting his father because no matter how many times he hit him, he’d never understand. It was like hitting a bug. Or a rat. Or a deranged puppy. They were incapable of understanding.

“Come on, Paco,” Lilly said, laughing. “You got to do it.”

Paco shook his head. He tried to speak. It took three times for the words to come out right. “I don’t have to do anything,” he finally said.

“But Paco—” B.J. began.

Paco stared at the darkness beneath The Mound’s blanket. He shook his head. “I’m not a goat. I’m not a chicken. I’m just a boy from Boise.”