Our Lady Chaos, page 8
part #5 of Bloodletter Series
In the living room, Eddie’s gaze snapped up, and he stared at the short hall that led to the kitchen. He felt as though he was going to throw up, the way he had felt when Jack McGregor had punched him in the belly the day before Spring Break had started.
“And what is it I’m doing to turn him against you, Ted?” his mother sneered. Her heels clacked on the linoleum.
Eddie pictured her stepping toward the door to the basement. His imagination painted her face in the ugly shades of hate, vehemence, and rage.
“You know what,” his father growled. “Don’t play coy.” He ascended another couple of steps, his boots pounding the treads. His breath rushed in and out like one of Uncle Gil’s bulls. His mother sighed, and his father imitated her sigh but made it somehow nasty. “Keep it up, Kathy… You go right on ahead and keep it up.”
“And what? What are you going to do, big man?” Her heels clacked again, and Eddie thought he’d imagined it right—she was at the top of the stairs, glaring down at his father, daring him to come up the steps.
Ted growled with anger, but there was no sound of him coming up the steps.
“You just stay down there, Ted. Go ahead and live down there until you’ve got a hold of yourself. You’ve already made quite an ass out of yourself today. Is this how you prefer for Eddie to remember you for the rest of his life?”
Something flickered at the edge of Eddie’s sight. Something black, something that brought cold, bitter wind to his mind. He didn’t want to turn his head, but it turned as if by its own accord.
A lady’s face hung in the corner behind the midnight-toned lamp emblazoned with bright blue fish that seemed to wriggle and swim in the black glass. Black smoke—or maybe just shadows—surrounded the woman, and he couldn’t see any more of her. The skin on her face was dusky, and the bones of her skull seemed pressed against the inside of her flesh as though barely contained. At first, the light couldn’t penetrate the dark mist that occupied the corner, but as the seconds ticked by on his mother’s cuckoo clock, the light bled into the shadowy corner, as if the shadows grudgingly allowed it entry. The woman’s skin was the color of desert dust and gleamed in the colored light cast by the lamp. Eyes like blackened pits glinted at him from the depths of the shadows, whirling and whirling, and with every harsh word coming from the other room, her irises pulsed with blue-tinged light. Her lips stretched in a smile that chilled Eddie down to the bone. As with when he’d first seen her reflection in the television set, her thick hair writhed like a mass of blue-black snakes. Black smoke permeated the area between her chin and the floor, making her appear to be a decapitated head floating in space.
Her eyes twitched toward the hall that led to the kitchen, and her smile widened at the thudding sound of his father’s footsteps as he climbed up from the dark cellar. Her lips parted, revealing jet black teeth that looked more like the fangs of the werewolf he’d seen in last Friday’s Creature Feature. In the light cast from the lamp, her jagged fangs appeared to drip with blood.
Her gaze drifted to Eddie, and when their eyes met, her smile grew even wider, and Eddie vomited all over his thighs. When the deluge of emesis stopped, he screamed, and his mother came running.
3
April 1976
The afternoon had warmed up from the chilly temperature the day had started with. The gray morning clouds had rolled away without dropping rain, sleet, or snow—Kristy considered it a minor miracle. Michelle Donnelly had invited her to go shopping at the mall, and she sat at her vanity putting on her lipstick as if getting ready for an evening with Leif. Over the previous few months, she’d taught Michelle everything she’d learned about makeup—and male anatomy.
She finished her makeup and pulled on her skin-tight Jordache jeans. With one last glance at the mirror, she ran downstairs and out into the beautiful afternoon. She had no bike, so she had to hoof it over to Michelle’s house by two o’clock, or she’d miss out on the mall.
“Hey, sexy,” said Leif’s voice.
She looked around but couldn’t see him. “Leif?”
“Up here,” he said with a chuckle.
She gazed up into the boughs of the maple tree that had always decorated their front lawn, and there he was, sitting on a branch, dangling his legs. He wore Levi’s, a green T-shirt, and a Cheshire grin. “Hey there,” she said in the voice she considered sultry.
He wrinkled his nose and smiled. “Where are you going all dolled up?”
“Well, I’m supposed to go to the mall with Michelle Donnelly. You know her, right?”
He shook his head. “I don’t see any girls but you.”
She fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Schmoopy, today, are you?”
“In this weather? With a sexy blonde standing beneath me? Who wouldn’t be?”
“A woman.”
“Yeah, you say that now, but if we reversed roles—”
“Then I wouldn’t need to say anything at all. You’d already be climbing up to me.”
Leif laughed, and it sent a little thrill coursing through her veins. “That’s true. How could I resist that outfit?” He patted the branch next to him. “Come on up. It’s an easy climb.”
Kristy glanced down the street in the direction she should be walking. “Okay,” she said after a moment. “But only for a minute or two. Michelle’s mom has a thing about punctuality. She won’t wait for me.” She grabbed a bough and hauled herself up, then looked for a path that would take her to him.
“What’s so important about the mall today? Going to Frederick’s of Hollywood to buy me a present?”
“In your dreams,” she said. She climbed onto his branch and slid out next to him, swinging her feet a little. “Besides, I’m going shopping with Michelle. She’s my best friend, and I ignored her all summer for you.”
“Yeah, I understand. But you have to admit I’m pretty cool.” He pretended to comb his hair back.
“Yes,” she said, letting the word slither out between her teeth the way she’d seen Brooke English do on All My Children.
Leif slid closer and slung his arm around her shoulder. “You sure you want to go shopping?” As she opened her mouth to say yes, he leaned in and kissed her.
She never even made it to Michelle’s house, let alone the mall.
4
May 1976
“Well, look-it there. There’s our friend, Sean Walker. Should we say hello?” asked Dennis.
“No,” said Jasper in a firm voice.
Dennis sneered and laughed. “Pussy.”
“I have to fly,” said Ari into the silence. “My mom has me doing piano lessons.”
“Pussy,” Jasper said in a near-perfect imitation of Dennis.
“How come you have to go every time we’re about to do something fun, Jewboy?” Dennis tilted his head to the side the way his dad did when he was grilling Dennis about some supposed wrongdoing.
Ari hunched his shoulders and half-turned away. “My mom’s coming down on me, man.”
“Ah, poor baby,” sneered Dennis. “Move on then, Jewboy. Run home to mommy.”
Jasper’s face twisted up, and he shifted to the side.
“What?” demanded Dennis. “Am I being mean to the Jewboy?”
“What’s your problem?” asked Ari.
“Me? Oh, nothing. I’m just wondering where my friends Ari and Jasper went. It’s like you two got replaced by one of them pod people.”
“Pod people?” asked Jasper.
“Yeah. From that old movie from the fifties. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it.”
Jasper shrugged and crossed his arms. “Nope.”
Dennis sighed, dropping his chin to chest. “My, oh my. I can’t believe you two sissies are my friends.”
Ari rolled his eyes. “Got to book. Catch you putzes on the flip side.”
“Backatcha, Ari,” said Jasper.
“Well, I’m not going to hang here with you two goons, anyway. Not when there’s a perfectly good opportunity to smack the shit out of that little narc.” Without waiting for a reply, he walked away.
“He didn’t narc!” called Jasper.
Dennis crossed the street and fell in behind Sean. His cast had been off for months, but the kid still held his arm out as if it were glass. He caught up to Sean and made a fist, extending his middle finger knuckle a bit. He stepped to the side and socked Sean hard.
“Ow! What the heck, Dennis?”
“You know what that’s for. Don’t freak out, little narc.”
“But I didn’t—” He snapped his mouth shut as Dennis thwacked him again.
“Don’t argue with me, Hong Kong Phooey.”
Sean shook his head, his nose wrinkled, and his lips cocked in a lopsided grimace. “What does that even mean?”
“Jesus Christ, does no one in this shitburg watch television?” Dennis slung his arm around Sean’s neck as though they were lifelong pals. “What are you doing this afternoon? Jasper and Ari flaked out, so it’s just you and me.”
Sean looked at him askance.
“Now, don’t look at me like that, kid. We’re past all that, right?”
Sean rubbed his bicep and lifted his shoulders.
“Let’s go hang out in Thousand Acre Wood. I’ll show you this cool path I found.”
Sliding out from under Dennis’s arm, Sean shook his head. “Nah. I don’t want to. Sorry.”
Dennis smiled at him crookedly. “That’s what I like about you, freakazoid. You don’t even bother to lie.” He tapped Sean’s bicep with his middle knuckle. “Maybe we should hang out more. Unless I’m not good enough to hang out with you.”
Sean didn’t reply, he just kept on moving with his head down and his hands in his pockets.
“Nothing? Nothing to say at all?”
Sean shrugged, and Dennis laughed.
“Well, okay then,” said Dennis. He stopped walking but stuck out his foot. Sean tripped over it and fell headlong to the sidewalk. “Whoa, sorry, dude!”
Sean rolled over, hatred blazing in his eyes. “Just leave me alone, Dennis Cratchkin. I never did anything to you, so leave me alone.”
“Whoa! I almost believed you had a pair. For a minute.” With a nasty smile, Dennis turned and walked the opposite way, leaving Sean sitting on the sidewalk, fuming.
5
June 1976
Apsu moved through the cool hallways that smelled of antiseptics and sickness. She spent a lot of time in hospitals, lingering near expectant mothers, looking through the window at the newborns, but no one ever hassled her.
No one ever saw her. Not unless she wanted them to, and when she did, it was too late for them, anyway.
Her foul mood wafted off her like heat off asphalt, and though no one could see her, they sensed her on a subconscious level as evidenced by how they jumped to clear her path. Some shivered and crossed themselves as she passed, and if it was a pregnant woman, Apsu stared at her for a moment longer than the others. More often than not, the women she paid special attention to miscarried.
She reached the neonatal ward and stood in front of the huge window, longing to break it, to send shards of shattered glass rattling amongst the babies on the other side. Hatred burned in her soul, cauterizing any weakness she might feel at their little faces, their tiny digits.
Apsu hated. She loathed the cruel fate that had made her sterile. She scorned the human ability to reproduce at will—among her kind, it took effort, not that Apsu had ever succeeded regardless of how much effort she put into the attempt. Apsu hated what she couldn’t have. Apsu hated.
She stood for a long while, looking down at the spiteful symbols of her failure. Apsu longed to sweep the nurses aside and to crush those little heads.
She didn’t do it. She never did it. Instead, she vented her choler in other ways, usually on other targets.
But that afternoon, she sowed sickness and death in the air on the other side of the glass, spawning billions of tiny bacteria—Mycobacterium tuberculosis, to be specific. She smiled, thinking of the panic and pain that would follow, and left the hospital, giving an old woman brain cancer on her way out.
She’d learned that trick from her mistress.
6
June 1976
Doctor Erikson steepled his fingers and tapped his index fingers against his front teeth. “Tell me again about this woman, Eddie. You told me she shows up when your parents are fighting and appears to enjoy their arguments?”
Eddie looked away, looking glum and feeling worse. “She just shows up. I don’t have anything to do with when she comes.”
“I didn’t think you did, Eddie,” said Doctor Erikson. “But it’s important that we talk about her.”
“But why? She never does anything. Well, except scare me.”
“How does she scare you, son? You told me she only looks at you. Why is that scary?”
Eddie hiked his shoulders up around his neck, uncomfortable under the doctor’s intense gaze. “I don’t know. She’s… Her eyes… She’s always hard to see. She wears shadows the way Mommy wears her coat.”
Doctor Erikson jotted something down in his little pad. “And you mentioned her irises twirl at you from the depths of those shadows? They whirl and throw off blue sparks?”
Eddie went back to watching his hands wrestle with each other in his lap. “Like windmills,” he muttered. “And the shadows are made of smoke. Black smoke.”
“And her mouth?”
“I know it’s weird, okay? I can’t help it. I can’t help how she looks.”
“It’s okay, Eddie. Tell me about her teeth.”
“Her fangs are all black. And sharp. Like a—” Eddie snapped his teeth together.
Doctor Erikson looked at him in that way adults had. The way that said, “you haven’t told me enough yet.”
“A werewolf,” Eddie muttered. His gaze met Doctor Erikson’s, as if daring the man to contradict him or laugh, but the psychiatrist only nodded as if it was a perfectly normal thing to say. “She’s… Her skin is dusty. Tan.”
“Tan the way a woman gets at the beach?”
“I’ve never been to the beach.”
Doctor Erikson smiled. “Okay. Do you ever watch the news with your parents?”
Eddie grimaced and tilted his head.
“What channel do you watch?”
Eddie flopped his hands to his sides. “Daddy likes CBS.”
“Have you seen the weather girl on the local news?” asked Erikson.
“Sure.”
“Is the scary woman’s skin tan like the weather girl’s?”
“No. Not really. It’s more like when my Uncle Gil makes Auntie Margo run the combine, that dust that the combine kicks up as it eats up the field. Her skin’s not shiny and pretty, like that woman on the news. It’s…”
“Is the woman who visits you covered in dust?”
Eddie shrugged. “Don’t think so. Her skin is the color of dust, and looks…kind of the way an abandoned house does after a while.”
Erikson wrote something down on his pad. “Does she ever talk to you?”
Eddie shook his head. “No, she just stares at me and smiles sometimes. But…”
“Go on, Eddie.”
“Well, her smile isn’t the same as a normal person’s. Not like when you grin because you’re happy or something’s funny. It’s…a mean smile.”
“I understand.” Doctor Erikson jotted something on his pad. “And you say you see her when your parents are having a fight?”
“Not the first time,” said Eddie. “That time I was dusting.”
“Interesting.”
That was the word Doctor Erikson used when what Eddie said wasn’t interesting at all. “She comes because of the lamp.”
“The lamp?” Doctor Erikson looked at Eddie over the top of his glasses. “Oh, yes, the Tiffany lamp your father gave your mother.”
“Right. I… I told you about that, right? That the colors changed?”
Doctor Erikson flipped back a few pages in his little pad. “No, I don’t recall you saying that. Tell me more.”
“When my daddy first brought it home, the shade was mostly aquamarine and had pretty dragonflies around the bottom of the shade. But now, since that lady’s been showing up, it’s so dark blue and dark purple that it seems black unless the light is on. Instead of dragonflies, bright blue fish that move.”
“They move?” Doctor Erikson leaned forward in his chair and then wrote something on his pad. “Tell me more about that.”
“Yeah. They wriggle and flop around the way real fishes do.”
Erikson’s pen jittered across the page, then he tilted his head and looked Eddie in the eye. “And where it was once aquamarine, it’s now blue and purple?”
“Dark blue and dark purple—almost black. Yeah. Like a big bruise, except the red on the edges and the blue fish.” Eddie watched Erikson write a flurry of words on his pad. “The body changed into a snake made of bronze. Oh! The chains…”
“Go on, Eddie.”
“The pull chains used to end in little bronze balls. Now, they are babies.”
“Babies?”
“Yeah.” Eddie slouched back against the couch. He didn’t know why talking about the lamp got him riled up, but it did.
“And your parents? Have they noticed these changes, too?”
“I’ve never talked to my father about the lamp,” said Eddie, looking down at his lap.”
“Ah. How about your mom?”
Eddie shook his head. “The lamp changed. It did.”
Doctor Erikson dipped his chin toward his chest. “Your mother disagrees?”
“Yeah, she said it’s always been the new colors, but even more than that, the pictures on it became something new and she says they haven’t.”
“Pictures?”
“Yeah. The dragonflies and the fishes.”
“Go on.”
“Go on? That’s the end. That’s how the lamp looks now. Fishes instead of dragonflies.”
Doctor Erikson flashed a balmy smile at him “Yes, Eddie. I meant go on with telling me about the fish.”
