Please Don't Go (39 page)

“
Don’t call me that!” Karen croaked.

Karen’s fat yellowish eyeballs stuck out further than they had before, on the verge of popping free from her skull. Was the puppet body seeking a response? Zephyr tried to open his mouth, steadying himself against his ravaged nerves and disbelief that he was speaking to a dead person’s reanimated body.

There was no running. Those days were dead and gone, just like Karen.

“
Call you
what
?” he replied.

“
Lilith, you dummy! Lilith!” the body squawked. The voice harkened Zephyr back to his childhood, of a cartoon parrot that had been a reoccurring character on his favorite show,
Mister Fister and the Hopping Gang,
a weekly half-hour cartoon that featured a cast of animal characters. One particular character was named Big Mouth, the talking parrot. Whenever the gang was in a serious predicament, one that required that they stay absolutely silent, Big Mouth would alert the entire cosmos as to their whereabouts and their intentions. This would, of course, ruin everything for them. When the adventure came to a conclusion, they would never revisit his verbal blunders, as they were just happy to have escaped without any serious consequences. The dead body of Karen sounded like Big Mouth, an almost perfect impersonation, and Zephyr refused to believe that this was not on purpose.

“
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never called you Lilith.”

“
Your thoughts are jelly and I am toast!” the dead hanging fish of a girl preached. The loud high-pitch squawk hurt Zephyr’s ears. He eyed the vomit-slash-blood on the floor, not wanting to make direct eye contact with the reanimated woman with the red hair and the mangled face. “Men are all the same! Think you run the world! We only
allow
you to!”

“
Who is
we
?” Zephyr shot back to the meaty marionette, careening back and forth on her hook.

“
We are we! And you are you! I am I! Don’t call me Lilith!”

“
You seem a bit put off by this. Could there be some truth the name that I’ve given you?” Zephyr asked, a coy smile seeping across his face like light through a partially opened doorway. “
Lilith
?”

“
Quiet!” With a lurch, the body of Karen came sliding off the hook, hovering in mid-air for a moment, and flew across the basement at Zephyr. It landed upon him, toppling him to the ground. The facial features and jaw were still being manipulated by Lilith, but she had chosen to take a more direct approach with her lambasting of Zephyr. “You can’t call me that!” the squealing voice informed him.

The stench of Karen’s body laying atop his own was unbearable. Zephyr belted forth a new strain of vomit, consisting of bile and saliva. He heaved a second time and nothing came up. The body was being pushed down upon him and he fought to keep it away, to escape the trap that had been snapped into action. “Get off me, you bitch,” he grunted, pushing against Lilith’s forceful will and Karen’s legless body with all his might.

He wanted to call her Lilith again, to provoke her further, but decided against it. She could easily do the same to him as she had done with Karen. But maybe, just maybe, that would be an improvement to his plight. An ending, all the same. Zephyr pushed the thought away. Hope was not lost on him. When hope was lost, he could revisit such morbid curiosities. A noose, a razor blade, a knife to the jugular. Any of these were options that had not yet been ruled out. Dying at the hands of Lilith required far too many variables for pain, and so that would never be a viable alternative.

“
Cast those thoughts out of your silly brain!” Karen’s carcass squawked, in reference to his suicidal thoughts.

“
Can I do my work now?” Zephyr asked, in trying to change the subject away from her hatred of the name Lilith. The acrimonious reaction to his saying (nay, simply
thinking
) the name prompted further investigation. But was she aware of
this
thought? And
this
one? And
this
one? Zephyr shivered at the possibility. “I have a mess to clean up. Just like you said,” he noted, feigning nonchalance.

Karen’s torso, head, and arms went limp, relieved of the pressures inflicted by Lilith’s commanding presence. Zephyr wiggled his hand free, pushing the body to his side and breathing heavily, thankful to be out from beneath her legless vessel.

Good of you to remember your mission.

“
As you ordered, ma’am,” Zephyr replied with a dab of sarcasm.

You should be glad I removed the legs. It makes her easier to fit inside those garbage bags.

“
How generous of you.”

Bring her to the greenhouse. She’ll make excellent fertilizer for the gardens. Why buy a flower when you can grow the whole Garden of Eden?

“
I agree.”

He could feel her smile bathing him in an icy blanket.

Isn’t this so much easier? When we get along?

“
It’s like a fantasy,” Zephyr replied, pulling himself up off the ground, clutching his face to mask himself from the vile odor emanating from Karen’s body. “Some days I wake up and I feel like I need to pinch myself, to make sure I’m not dreaming.”

We’ll be just fine. It takes time. I don’t expect you to understand that. I’ve known cows, goats, and sheep that have lived longer lives than you have thus far. I’ve seen them come and go, little lover. I’ve smacked the first foul-mouthed boy and I’ll be there to do the same to the last. You’ll know your place. You, and all the rest of you. Can’t you see that this is the way it should be? Can’t you see that your people have been living a lie?

Zephyr was not sure how to respond to this assertion. “I see,” he lied.

And boy?

“
Yes?”

Don’t call me Lilith again or I’ll sliver your penis down the middle and flip it inside out like a banana peel.

***

Lana rapped at the door with a shaky hand. Too much caffeine. One coffee after another, she had slugged them away without any cares in the world. Her blood pressure had always been unreasonably high, and the doctors had warned her against both the smoking and the overtly indulgent caffeine consumption. It seemed, as of late, that her hands were shaking more often than not.

“
Anybody home?” she called at the door, rapping a second time. Her fingers felt numb.

Nothing. Silence.

She banged again, harder this time. Her fist started to ache, but she would continue until somebody came to the goddamned door. If they didn’t come, she would break the window and climb through. This wasn’t a game... not any longer, not like Jackie had treated the situation. This was her son, dammit. The boy had crawled out from between her knees and she would be ashamed if she wasn’t going to stand next to her cub, to protect it right until the moment of their deaths.

“
Open the fucking door!” she called out, a primal serpent rising in her belly.

The door swung open with a grand gust of wind. Beyond it, through the screen, was nothing but darkness coated in a murky shade of infinite dread that both beckoned her and terrified her at the same time. “Zephyr?” she asked, stepping over the threshold.

15.

While Zephyr was packaging up his former co-worker, the sounds of his mother at the door above him drowned out by the numbing shock of the bloody pieces in his hands, the demon he had named Lilith went up the stairs to greet their newest house guest. It seemed that they were arriving in droves these days, one after another like troops on a march of doom, and it tickled Lilith to no end.

At the top of the stairs, Lilith slammed the door shut behind her, locking the dead bolt that would keep Zephyr at bay.

Zephyr’s mother, I presume. So nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard such wonderful things. You know that you raised a wonderful boy, don’t you? Oh, you can’t be THAT old! You look so much younger than that. These peas are delicious. And what do you do for a living? Oh, that sounds interesting, I bet that is a very rewarding life for you. Yes, I treat your boy well. He’s in excellent hands. Maybe not as good as YOUR hands, but well-intentioned all the same. Where did you get that purse? It’s adorable!

16.

She left the door open behind her, drawn to the subtle early evening darkness of the musty old home, the type of place that would have comforted her under normal circumstances, but presently did no such thing. Something wafted in and out of her nose, a mixture of rotting peaches and cinnamon, though she had not the acute senses to label the smell as just that. Lana walked past the book shelves, staring at the soft brown couch that lay before her, wondering if Zephyr had ever sat in it. Based on what she had heard from Jackie, it would be safe to assume that yes, he had once sat in the arms of the big burly thing.

But recently? Other animals might have been able to sniff the couch, to squish their nose against the fabrics to determine if and when their baby cub had last been there. Humans, though, were not endowed with such abilities. A bit embarrassed, she leaned in and took a whiff, but the smell of the couch was engulfed in all the other off-kilter aromas that surrounded her.

It was past dinner time now, but there was still a trace of spring daylight coming through the windows. The house seemed to be illuminated by natural light quite well, though chilly in temperature. They had, in Maine, just entered that crossover period where it was warm enough for a short-sleeved shirts during the day, but frigid enough at night that the heat would kick on, reminding you that you weren’t quite out of the woods yet.

“
Zephyr? You in here?” she called out as a door slammed from beyond the den, around the corner and to the right. Lana jumped at the sound, unnerved by the first door that had gone all
open-sesame
for her, and even more so uneasy about the slamming door that followed in a call-and-response of unruly passageways. “Mr. Rattup? Is that you?” She had never known or met the man, but approached the hallway with a smile painted upon her face. Better to make an open-armed considerate move, especially given that she was technically breaking and entering into the old coot’s house.

Nobody answered her.

As she passed the fireplace, it spontaneously burst to life, the flames dancing in her eyes. She stumbled backward at the sight. Had it been burning the whole time? She consoled herself that it had indeed been going since she had entered, but was small enough to not notice, perhaps even in an ember state. A gust of oxygen through the chimney could have caused the temporary flourish of the fire. Still, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end. She sweetly (but with a nervy tremolo to her voice) called through the darkening house again. “Is there
anybody
here? Zephyr? Mr. Rattup?” As she said their names, side by side, the image of her son and Rattup engaging in sexual intercourse quickly darted through her mind and it caused her to gasp. Her son had, according to the little tramp, grown a fondness for the retired writer, and then had subsequently disappeared from the face of the earth. Something in that tugged at her intuitions. Had her son been
gay
all along? Zephyr had never dated much in high school, and perhaps that was an orchestrated front for his true persona, for the scared young homosexual beneath his facade. He was shy, though, with both boys and girls. There was nothing wrong with being a little coy or timid, thought Lana. In fact, the world might have ended up a better place if people learned to keep their yappers glued a long time ago.

Lana walked through the short hallway that connected the den to the rest of the house, turning at a doorway to come upon a kitchen. To her left was a door that led to what she assumed was the basement dwelling. Was
this
where she had heard the slamming door originate from? She studied the knob, reaching out for it.

Faintly, from behind the door, she heard her son’s voice. “Mom?” he asked, a barely audible muffled niblet of her child from beyond the door. Her face lit up at the prospect, but then grew grim again.
Why was he in the basement?
Had he been locked away, against his will, by Rattup? As she grabbed the knob and twisted, she found that the door was locked shut by a deadbolt at eye level. She reached up for the deadbolt but her hand never reached it.

A force grabbed at that extended hand, twisting her wrist into an unnatural shrieking position, her hand cocked back against her inner forearm. She roared in pain, falling to her knees as she felt the tendons in her wrist being contorted against the rigid framework of her body. “Zephyr!” she yelped, looking to the door with tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

You should have left him be, bitch.

“
Who is that?” she replied to the voice. It did not sound as though it was coming from behind the door, as Zephyr’s voice had, but it only seemed logical. But if the attacker was on the other side of the doorway, then how would they be physically manhandling her wrist? She twisted her body, hoping to see her attacker and launch her own counterattack, but no matter how hard she tried to crane her neck back, she saw nothing but empty air in an empty kitchen. The recessed lights flickered.