The Horribles.

Nathaniel Lambert.

To Melissa, my wife, thank you for helping me face my own parade of horribles.

CAUSATION.

Momma was listening to Billie Holiday on a summer day when it was a little too hot outside but the breeze was just right. Sheldon was latched on to the hem of Momma's dress while she swayed her hips back and forth and hummed along to "Lady Sings the Blues".

"Why you wanna listen to something so sad, Momma?" he asked while she spun around him with ease to the opposite side of the small kitchen.

"Baby, this here just reminds me how happy I am."

She moved like water across a smooth rock, navigating around the little boy without even making a ripple. Sheldon's small hand clinging to the neatly pressed fabric of her dress was more an extension of his mother's grace than a hindrance. He could watch her dance forever.

Just as Ms. Holiday was wrapping up her last lament, Daddy hollered from the shed out back. Momma stopped dancing and set down the plate she was drying. She tilted her head to the side, her face worried. Sheldon liked the way the sunlight shining in from the kitchen window reflected off her lovely, dark skin. On tip-toes, she leaned against the counter to get a better look outside. Sheldon wasn't too worried. Daddy probably just hit his thumb with the hammer again. Momma must have thought the same thing, 'cause that knitted up look loosened around the edges just a bit.

"Go out there and see what your father is up to, Sheldon." Momma gently nudged him toward the back door. "Make sure he didn't hurt himself. When you get back, we'll have to break out that rhubarb pie you've been eyeballin' like a starving vulture."

"Ok, Momma," Sheldon said on the way out. Halfway through the back porch he stopped, turned around, and gasped. I forgot my boat, he thought. He left the toy sailboat, the one his father had made from a piece of fine oak, on the top of the front stairs. Someone was sure to s.n.a.t.c.h it up. If something were to happen to it . . . he'd just die.

With the same grace of his mother he maneuvered around the kitchen table, dashed through the living room, and out the front door. Momma looked up from behind the open icebox when her boy's bare feet slapped against the hardwood floors. She shook her head, stepped back holding a freshly baked rhubarb pie and shut the door with her hip.

"Praise Jesus!" Sheldon cried softly so his Momma couldn't hear. His boat sat up against the wrought iron railing where he'd left it, untouched. He scooped the polished wood up in his arms and squeezed gently. The soft cloth of the miniature sail tickled his cheek. Safe and sound. Now he could go check on Daddy and, as Momma said, make sure he hadn't hammered his hand to a board.

Daddy must have been tired, 'cause he decided to take a nap right there on all that dirt. Even though it was warm enough to make the Devil sweat, he shivered something awful. Sheldon's first thought, when he rounded the corner of the old shed and saw Daddy lying on the ground, was to run back inside and get him a blanket and maybe a pillow. It couldn't be comfortable sprawled out on that hard, dirty ground. There was something dark and thick spilt all around Daddy's head. Sheldon thought Daddy must have dumped a can of motor oil and accidentally lay down in it. The boy also saw a track of oily footprints leading from the bigger puddle back around the shed toward the house.

He quit moving toward his spasming father. A different thought occurred to him. He hugged the wooden toy tighter and swallowed hard. What if he wasn't sleeping? What if Daddy slipped in the oil and hurt himself?

Sprinting closer to Daddy, Sheldon collapsed. The oil splashed up on his bare knees and he slid uncontrollably, crashing into the no longer shivering body.

Everything was wrong. Daddy's perfectly shaved head, normally shiny and smooth, had a big uneven crater on the top. Large jagged shards of white bone were buried in all the red and greyish speckles of foamy fat bubbling out. Sheldon realized what he lay in wasn't oil at all.

He finally dropped the boat and put two tiny, innocent hands over the hole to try to stop the blood from flowing out. It seeped up to his knuckles. He tried to stop the seepage until it grew sticky and stopped altogether. At the end, Sheldon looked hard into his Daddy's fading eyes expecting him to wink and let the boy in on the joke. He'd stand up and they'd both go in for a piece of pie. Daddy was always playing jokes, like making it look like his thumb came off his hand. But he never did see a wink. His Daddy's pursed lips relaxed and Sheldon leaned in close, looking down at his father, to feel one last hot breath rasp out onto his cheek. He breathed in his Daddy's last breath.

Momma screamed from inside the house.

The distance between what used to be Daddy and the screen door was short, but to Sheldon it felt as long as a football field. He sucked in all the air his tiny lungs would hold and pistoned his legs up and down. He followed the footprints, the b.l.o.o.d.y ones, back around the shed, up the stairs, crashing right through the metal screen. The burning air he had fought so hard for while running came rushing out when he stepped into the kitchen. All his muscles went loose and his spine melted. He collapsed into a pile on the gore covered floor and curled into a ball. His thumb traveled to his mouth. He didn't blink and his chest rose up and down rapidly. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep, but the scene before him had shackled them open. He stared straight ahead.

Momma had sprung a leak.

Slumped over the counter with her upper half forcefully crammed into the small sink basin, Momma's head was completely submerged. The bubbly dishwater spilled over onto the linoleum and left a contrasting trail of white through all the venous red running in a crooked line toward the terrified boy. The angle of her spine was all wrong, too, not so straight, but more like the angle where two walls meet. He wanted to get up off the floor and lift her head out of the water so she could breathe but he couldn't. Not even parents could stay underwater that long. All he could do was lie completely still with every muscle tightened in his small frame, and suck his thumb like a baby, not an eight-year-old boy.

Momma'd lost a shoe and her bare foot twitched.

Sheldon was saturated from head to toe with the blood of his parents.

Daddy's axe was neatly placed up against the wooden cupboard like his sailboat against wrought iron railing.

Momma's homemade pie fell to the floor and exploded.

Its fleshy insides looked a lot like Momma's.

Sheldon messed himself when he looked at what stood on the counter above his Momma.

It wore large leather boots with too many metal buckles. Straddling the upper half of Momma, it jerked and hitched from side to side like some type of clockwork machine. Sheldon couldn't make out its face, because it was hidden by the hood of a thick wool coat. It's too d.a.m.n hot for wool. That's what his Daddy would've said. But his parents would never say anything again. This thing rocking back and forth, slowly shaking a very human index finger at the boy, had made sure of that.

Sheldon stared back, his brain already void of anything other than fundamental existence.

The boy and monster were locked together in an instant void of time itself, as if the scene was dipped in resin and left to be preserved for a lifetime. Sheldon sealed himself in a different type of resin. This one was deep within and it would take him more time than allotted in an average life to chisel back out. One more lazy shake of a finger followed by a friendly wave, like the ice cream man would give his favorite customer, and then the hooded monster stepped out the window. Sheldon watched transfixed as it leapt out from above Momma's mutilated carca.s.s like a dust ball caught in a vacuum. He'd just seen the Devil and he never, ever wanted to set eyes on it again. Just before he went catatonic the record player wailed: Lady sings the blues She's got 'em bad She feels so sad The world will know She's never gonna sing them no more No more . . .

PART ONE.

WITHIN.

Early this mornin'

when you knocked upon my door Early this mornin', ooh when you knocked upon my door And I said, "h.e.l.lo, Satan, I believe it's time to go."

- Robert Johnson.

o n e.

"Good afternoon. May I please speak with Mrs. Stewart? Ah, wonderful."

"Mrs. Stewart? This is Sheldon Delaney. Oh, I'm fine, really, just fine. And you . . . ? That's no good . . . I hope it wasn't anything too serious. Great! You had me worried for a minute.

"Mrs. Stewart, the reason I'm calling is to let you in on a . . . well, to be honest, to let you in on a steal of a deal. This isn't something we offer everyone, but our records show that you have been a very faithful customer over the years and we would like to reward you-"

"That's very understandable, Mrs. Stewart. And times are definitely hard. That's why I really need to insist that you take advantage of this unbelievable opportunity. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure how much longer we're going to be able to offer it. Seriously, we're losing money on this one, but it's just one more way for us to show our appreciation."

"Well, thank you very much. It's people like you that make me want to get up and go to work every day. No kidding.

"How does fifty percent off sound, Mrs. Stewart?"

"I know, I know. It doesn't even sound fathomable. All you have to do is buy one product at full price and we'll practically give you another at half the cost!"

"But you don't have the new and improved model. Our engineers have really outdone themselves this time. The accessories are mind-boggling. And it's practically indestructible. Mrs. Stewart, if you order today, I'll put my personal guarantee on every item."

"Wonderful! I'll put you down for two . . . hold on. Yes. Yes, sir . . . my supervisor has just informed me that orders over fifty dollars qualify for free shipping."

"Great! I'll change the order to three then. Mrs. Stewart, your order should be at your door within fourteen business days. You have a lovely day and take care of yourself."

"I'll definitely try. Goodbye, Mrs. Stewart."

Sheldon Delaney let the phone receiver roll off the tips of his fingers. The hollow ring of it settling back into the carriage was a familiar and intimate melody of relief. It meant he could return to a life cut off from the outside world. To Mrs. Stewart, or any number of other customers, Sheldon was part of a bustling business environment-a boss hovering over his shoulder, co-workers mindlessly buzzing about, contributing to collective productivity. But in reality, there was only him, a phone strategically placed on the (his mother's) kitchen table and a never ending list of numbers.

He worked alone, peddling the extraneous from a catalogue to those who neither needed nor could afford it. But the job opportunities for an individual who refuses-who finds it physically impossible-to take a step outside his home are limited. This job was about the only opportunity to be had.

So he grinded out a living. Conversations with the unacquainted were as painful as a visit to the doctor's office. But the process was well worth the agony, because once the call was disconnected, he could look up, glance around his empty home, and breathe in the relief of being absolutely alone.

Solitude.

"Nothing out there for me, anyhow," he mumbled and rubbed a palm through his coa.r.s.e, black hair. He was still sitting at the kitchen table, filling out an order form for the lovely Mrs. Stewart. "You know what happened last time I went outside on my own . . . ain't that right, momma?"

At that very moment, Momma glided into the kitchen. Still, after all these years, so graceful. She ran a cold, vaporous finger along his neckline as she pa.s.sed. It gave him comfort and made him shiver all at the same time. He watched her open a cupboard and then close it. She walked past him and proffered a smile before disappearing into the living room. Sheldon returned the smile. It felt good seeing his momma like that, just as he remembered her, before that day, before she was taken. Even if she wasn't real, it felt good.

Sheldon was real, and unlike the immortal images of his mother and father, he had finally grown up. Changed. The little boy had grown to be a man, grown into the high cheekbones and far set, almond eyes of his mother, and eventually he filled his father's broad muscular frame, but in many ways, he had never got up off the kitchen floor. The ma.s.sacre of Daddy and Momma was always fresh in his mind. The absolute nail in the coffin was that he had lain down in all their muck and couldn't help but gaze into the eyes of the thing responsible for it all. And at that very moment he made a promise to himself. He remembered chanting it over and over again, right then and there on the blood slick, linoleum floor of his childhood home: I'll never leave again. No go outside. Never again. Never leave. No more. It's safe in here. Outside is bad. Is wicked. Evil. The Horribles.

I'll never leave again.

He had yet to break that promise. Had never willingly broken that promise, anyway. There was a time when people had forcefully removed him from his home. To fix him. But mostly he still felt broken.

After he finished filling Mrs. Stewart's order, he stood up from the small kitchen table, stretched his arms high and yawned. He stepped away from the table and prepared himself for the routine.

Call it his own version of fire watch-walking a worn and well-rehea.r.s.ed route in the interior of his home. He had a mental checklist that had to be completed each and every day. Sometimes, twice. Occasionally, the routine filled every waking minute in a twenty-four hour period.

Check all the doors: front, back, and bas.e.m.e.nt.

The closets, cupboards, behind the shower curtains, under the bed.

Flip the latch on the windows.

Hesitate, each and every time, over Momma's kitchen sink, next to the window that horrible thing had escaped through. Shake the mist of poisonous memories away and double-check the lock.

March, march, march. Walk the perimeter. Be proactive, be ready for them.

Anyone in the yard, ducking behind the bushes, crouched beneath the sill? You never know. They're clever. That one horrible thing could easily become many.

Are there any gaps, anything overlooked? Can they get in? Am I safe? Will I ever be safe?

The Horribles. The Horribles were out there. He couldn't see them but sometimes he was sure he could hear them breathing. Sometimes, at night, he could imagine their wet maws pressed against the window or the bottom of the door. Sniffing for him. Wanting him to come out.

His father was there with him, helping secure the house. Or a version of him. They walked together from the lime green painted (Momma's favorite color) kitchen into the narrow hallway. Sheldon ran a finger above a collection of family photos while his father walked behind him. Mom, dad, and child at the beach. A holiday photo. A young Sheldon at the pitcher's mound. Good times were frozen in those photos. He was with the ones he loved. But the blurred reflection within the gla.s.s frames showed him completely alone. Not even his phantom father was revealed.

Only the living were reflected back.

He made his way into the bungalow's small living room. Everything was still there: a leather couch off to the left against the wall, painting of a cozy cabin hanging above; his favorite recliner tucked in the corner to the right, next to the fireplace, below oak-finished stairs leading to the second floor; a rowing machine he visited once a day for forty minutes placed next to the recliner; TV below the picture window, curtains drawn; books stacked neatly in each corner and occupying the bulk of a coffee table in front of the couch. It looked the same as always. Lived in. Comfortable. The way his parents had left it.

His father sat down silently on the mantle of the fireplace and rubbed his hands together. Sheldon bent over to grab a paperback from the table. The clatter of the metal flap on the mailbox startled him. He shifted his attention from the book, to his vapid father who seemed to melt like wax, to the front door. The noise was unnerving. He hadn't even heard footsteps on his porch.

The mailman didn't come 'til three. And Evan normally brought the mail in for him. This was something different. It changed his routine, his pattern. Not good. Not good at all.

Should he wait for Evan to bring it in? A voice inside ordered him to see what was in the mailbox.

Go see what it is, Sheldon. Take care of it. Then get on with your self-inflicted imprisonment.

He froze, building up the courage to continue, one foot on the kitchen linoleum and the other resting on the carpeted hallway. His body tensed and he listened carefully. Still no sound of an intruder. Then he jumped up like someone had suddenly run a dirty current through the floor. He slowly and meticulously made his way to the front door, almost low-crawling the last few feet. Pausing to take a deep breath, pulse already beginning to double, he quickly yanked the door open. The bells and whistles started to screech in his ears the instant the door creaked open. His vision blurred and the pressure on his temples felt like he'd been placed at the bottom of the Mariana trench. He thought he could see the Horribles emerging from behind bushes, pa.s.sing in cars, climbing from the sewers cut into the curb of the road. They wore hoods and boots with metal buckles. He closed his eyes. A little better. Not much. With eyes still clenched shut, he shot a hand up and to the left, blindly searching for the mailbox, and scooped out a single piece of paper. Quickly shutting the door, he collapsed to the floor, exhausted after the brief exposure to the outside.

And this was just to retrieve the mail. Imagine how it would be . . . outside.

He waited for his pulse to wane and then looked down at what he had grabbed.

The paper looked to be made of recycled material. Too thick and uneven. An a.s.sortment of browns, reds, and black speckled the paper. It was oily and slick to the touch. He a.s.sumed it was homemade, probably out of hemp or some other hippie product. It smelled organic, too, like pond water or swamp. There was something else just below the organic smell, an almost sweet scent, but he couldn't make it out.

"What is this?" he smelled the paper and rubbed it against his thumb and index finger. "What am I supposed to do with this, huh?"

He opened it up slowly, still trembling after his excursion beyond the threshold, but at the same time cherishing a little sliver of something different in his life.

Come one, come all As the twilights doth fall When the dusky sunset curtain parts Births the traveling motor parade Baubles and trinkets galore!

All free for those who implore Please, join the traveling motor parade this Sat.u.r.day for family fun on two wheels.

"A parade?" He closed his hands around the pamphlet and squeezed as if it had a neck. "Oh, no! You won't get me out of the house." Sheldon balled the piece of paper up and tossed it across the room where it landed next to the sofa. "I should put razorblades on the bottom of my mailbox . . . that would keep them out."