Christmas Trees & Monkeys Read online

  Jacob continued his vigil and waved away his friend’s suggestion. Kenny grabbed his arm. “Throw it, you piss-head.”

  At that moment the door to the small room swung open.

  In a reaction more instinctive than calculated, Jacob slapped at the metal bar. He caught the window at the last moment, closing it silently. His eyes never left the old man. Carefully, like an animal backing away from a threat, he slithered in the grass until he was out of the window’s light.

  Kenny whispered, “Oh, my God.” He was on his feet, pacing behind Jacob. “Oh, my God oh my God oh my -”

  “Will you shut up?” Jacob’s hiss froze Kenny’s hysteria for the moment. The boy looked down, eyebrows raised in a silent plea.

  In reply Jacob whispered, “We do nothing.” He scrambled onto his knees. “Just stay put and see if he leaves again.”

  Kenny shook his head, but did not move.

  * * *

  Benson Laraby shuffled past the coffin. In his peripheral vision he tried to see if the Kinsley boy was still at the window. He had seen someone up there earlier. He knew damned well who it was. Sick idiot kid, he thought. This was the third time he’d spied the boy watching him. He turned to face the window. Nothing but darkness beyond. He sighed. The boy was probably still there but, as before, the old man decided to leave him to his devices rather than call Robert Kinsley and get him in trouble. Last thing he wanted was a bunch of broken windows to deal with later.

  The internal temperature looked good. Laraby released the safety and pulled down hard on the old lever. The twin doors to the oven screeched open. In seconds the basement room was thick with heat.

  * * *

  Patrick took short, silent breaths. He listened to the old man’s footsteps. All but forgotten was the stench and feel of the vomit. Two opposing voices in his head fought for control. One screamed “Open the lid! Open it and climb out the window. He’ll see you but might not recognize you! You’ll be safe….”

  The other voice was calm, a soothing unperturbed whisper. “Don’t move,” it said. “Just stay calm and wait to see what happens. The last thing you want is for Jacob to see you running like a little girl. The old man’ll recognize you; don’t kid yourself. Then what will your father say?”

  This last voice is what Patrick obeyed.

  Something shifted beside him. He turned his head in the darkness. With terrifying clarity he realized the only other thing in the coffin was Mister Benchman.

  * * *

  When Kenny pushed past his friend, Jacob grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him down. In the boy’s ear he whispered, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “The old man’s gonna burn him, we have -”

  Jacob covered Kenny’s mouth with his hand. “You’re right,” he said, looking occasionally through the window. “Little Patrick’s going to burn. The doors are open. The old man’s going to pull another lever and the coffin’ll slide in and the doors will slam shut.” He smiled and wiped at a string of spit with his free hand. “There’s nothing we can do now but watch him die.”

  Kenny shifted sideways, sending Jacob rolling in front of the window. “You’re nuts, man. I’m not letting him die!”

  Jacob saw the old man move to put the casket between him and the furnace. The burning in his belly was now an inferno. Kenny crawled towards the window. Jacob jumped on top of him. Kenny dragged himself along the ground. He was seconds away from ruining everything. With both hands Jacob lifted the biggest rock within reach and crashed it onto the back of the other boy’s head. Kenny grunted only once. His left arm twitched, as if trying to shake off a bug, then stopped. He lay, unmoving, just outside the square of yellow light.

  Something dark turned in Jacob’s stomach. He ignored it, knowing that Kenny would start bawling at any moment. He looked through the window and hoped he hadn’t missed anything. He watched with renewed excitement as the old man pulled the final release, sending the casket rolling along the conveyor and into the oven.

  * * *

  For one joyous moment Patrick thought the old man was gone. The footsteps faded behind his head, towards the door. Was he gone? The oven doors must have been opened. The roaring of the furnace muffled most of the outside sounds. He wished he could be sure.

  The calm voice returned. “Stay where you are. Don’t blow it now.”

  “Patrick, run!” The other voice, still heard only within his head, sounded different, not his own. It sounded like Mister Benchman. Still half-turned in the darkness towards the body, Patrick pushed himself against the vomit-covered wall. He heard the sound again, the rustling of polyester, cloth rubbing against itself. The coffin shook. Patrick had the sensation of riding on a roller coaster.

  The howl of the furnace raced around him. The old man hadn’t left. He just rolled them in. Suddenly, it seemed too late to do anything. If he opened the lid, he’d be burned alive. Patrick’s mind spun in a chaotic jumble of thoughts. If he didn’t do something now he’d burn anyway. What would his father say? He closed his eyes, panicked sobs fighting for release. “Don’t make a sound,” the calm voice said. “Shhhh.”

  The unmistakable screech of the closing doors. Now he was going to die. Again the sound of rustling beside him. Something grabbed his leg. An arm fell across his chest. Patrick opened his eyes, expecting to see the old man pulling him out. All he saw was darkness. Fingers closed tighter around his leg. Patrick screamed as he’d never screamed before.

  * * *

  The oven doors slammed shut. Immediately the shape of the coffin was lost beyond the windows, wrapped in a savage blanket of fire as the gas jets opened completely. Laraby maintained his grip the release lever. That was a scream he heard; it had to be. There was no longer any sound but the roar of the furnace. He looked around, up to the window. At that moment three thoughts crystallized in his mind: he had heard someone, the Kinsley kid was at the window earlier, and now he was gone. The old man looked at the oven door, back at the window.

  “Oh, shit.”

  * * *

  “Burn,” Jacob breathed. “Burn.” He saw the vague outline of the coffin in the flames. “Are you screaming?” He almost laughed the words. He rubbed his hands against the front of his jeans. A sudden, shaking release filled every corner of his body. He sighed in ecstasy. A blinding flash of light forced his hand to his eyes. The doors had been opened. Safety valves kicked in, shutting down the oven.

  Jacob leaned into the square of light. He shouted, “No! What are you doing?” The old man pulled the burning husk of coffin through the doors with a grappling hook.

  * * *

  Laraby thought he heard shouts behind him, but knew they had to be from inside. The top of the coffin was engulfed completely in flame. The layers of polish had melted, leaving the wood along the sides to blacken and pop. Once the majority of the box was free of the doors the old man grabbed the burning lid. The pain in his hands was instant and immense. He let go and grabbed once more for the grappling hook. His palms sizzled against its handle. He allowed himself a short high-pitched scream. Then he noticed the coffin’s latch was open. Why the hell hadn’t he seen that before? Above him, fire and smoke licked at the cement roof. The sprinklers did not react, but the fire alarms screamed in panic.

  “Come on, oh God this is insane.” The coffin just kept burning. Heart smashing in his chest, he maneuvered the hook under the edge of the lid and pulled. The melted hinges fought him every inch. Laraby howled with the effort and the constant pain. The burning lid raised completely.

  What he saw in the coffin made him stop. Benchman’s body lay sprawled atop a young boy. It wasn’t Kinsley. The fire spread to the coffin’s lining. Cursing, he flung the dead man away. An arm landed in the fire; the dark jacket’s sleeve glowed with red burning spots then ignited.

  The kid was heavy, dead weight. Laraby worked his arms under the shoulders and pulled. The side of the coffin was as hot as coals, searing his knees. The boy’s legs caught on the lower lid. Laraby slippe
d and fell onto the floor. He clambered back to his feet, reached into the burning coffin and gripped the boy by the shirt. Beside him, the corpse itself was lighting up. Chemicals pumped through veins to replace blood now burned like gasoline. Laraby pulled the boy from the coffin head first. Together they crashed to the floor.

  Black smoke filled the room halfway to the floor. Laraby leaned closer to the boy, but heard no breathing. His fingers were too blistered to look for a pulse. He opened Patrick’s mouth and exhaled into it. Once, it seemed, was enough. The boy gasped in the burning air, then coughed with such violence his body twisted on the floor like an epileptic’s.

  The old man crawled to the door and opened it, hand disappearing into the smoke when he reached for the knob. He pulled the twisting body of the boy out of the room.

  * * *

  Smoke drifted under the window; black clouds obscured everything beyond. Jacob wobbled side to side, searching for a break through which to see what was happening. Useless. He found the metal bar; held his breath and propped open the window. Smoke poured into his face. He flattened himself against the ground, coughing once out of reflex. As soon as the cloud beyond the window was spent enough, he raised his head and looked inside.

  The wood of the coffin was a blackened, burning log. Within, the crackling bones of Mister Benchman separated from each other as the final licks of flame disintegrated tendons and muscle. Freed of restraint, the skull turned sideways. Jacob stared into two pillars of smoke drifting from the eye sockets. He gripped the tall, neglected grass below the window in an attempt to control his fear. “Where is he?” he whispered. “What did you do with him?” As if to answer, the skeleton’s jaw dropped open in a flaming mockery of laughter.

  Jacob scurried backwards without taking his eyes from the window. “Come on, Kenny. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  The other boy did not respond. He lay face down, the rock still resting against his head.

  “Kenny?”

  A few minutes later, the first fire truck screamed into the yard. In the hellish red glow of the emergency lights, Jacob knelt beside his friend and howled into the night.

  — — — — —

  About “AM”

  There are generally two types of stories I tend to write. Slam! Bang! Aaaaaahhh! Meat and Potatoes kind of horror, like the previous story. Then there are the ones I sometimes write at night before dropping off to sleep. I do this rather than reading when I feel the muse tugging at me. I’ll boot up the laptop and sit in bed, type away, then eventually fall asleep mid-sentence. I wake up in the wee hours of the morning, save the file, and turn off the PC. The next night, it usually takes a little while to figure out what the last couple of sentences say. You see, I usually fall asleep first, then stop typing a few minutes later (sleep-writing, if you will). So the last couple of lines might read:

  The cat bowed its head in an angry fghen sjt . Bentille laughed attt the little shit wha ths she ejejejeje,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

  Many a brilliant writing was lost in the inability of my brain to unscramble lose last lines.

  The other off-shoot of these stories is that their atmosphere tends to be more moody and introspective. I become bolder in my approach, experimenting with stuff that sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t. In the case of Benedictine in the next story, even his name was a bizarre step. What the hell kind of name is Benedictine? It’s not a name, but it’s perfect for this story... I think. My tired brain probably picked it because of the monk-connection (i.e. Benedictine Monks). Reverence. Quiet. The story itself came to being on the ride home one night after working late. I was bored of the FM stations, didn’t have my usual book-on-tape, so I tried some talk shows on AM. Driving along a deserted Interstate 190, I noticed how so many faraway stations served as background noise, hissing in and out depending on where your car happened to be passing at the moment.

  Hmm, thought I, maybe these aren’t other radio stations, maybe they’re... well, read on....

  Oh, I should point out, the bits in the story where I portray radio static was not me falling asleep while writing, honest.

  — — — — —

  AM

  Benedictine barely breathed. Just enough to keep himself alive. Otherwise the tenuous line, the milky thread connecting him to the old couple might forever blow away, a breath severing a spider’s thread. His fingers did not touch the dial. They merely offered the suggestion of touch, of turning barely a whisper to the left. It shouldn’t be able to go this far. There was nothing here to get.

  Or so everyone thought. Benedictine knew better. Not to breathe. Just enough. Not to touch.

  “...spell it ou… zzzzhssss… me.” Static washed over the words, an undertow perpetually pulling the voices back into its depths. “Maybe I’m too sen… zzzzsssshhh… sten properly.”

  Listen. Savor the clarity for as long as it remains.

  Her: “You just never cease to dig your cla… ssskkksszzzindss… my skull. Are you ever happy?”

  Him: “Must be th…sssss. Senile me. Fine. Tell me. What the hell did I do this time?”

  Oh, God. So clear now. Benedictine looked up, but only with his eyes. A turn of the head might sever the signal. A.M. radio could be a hypersensitive harpy when she chose to. More so this far back on the dial, and such an eternal distance between Benedictine and the bickering couple.

  The night sky was clear, crystallized into a billion stars. Odd, since A.M. broadcasts usually traveled better with clouds to reflect from. His eyes returned to the portable radio. He supposed weather didn’t really play a factor in this case.

  The old woman finally replied. “It’s what you didn’t do. It’s ALWAYS what you didn’t s… sssszzzzthh....”

  Not so soon! Static. Passing under some celestial overpass? So inconsistent, the signal. He waited.

  Benedictine was seventeen years old. He liked this old couple. They argued. Never seemed to give it a rest. This was the third time he’d tuned them in with any semblance of clarity. The first two transmissions were no different than tonight’s. Argue. Bicker. Unrelenting, spiteful words, and something else. Did true love mean fighting over eternity? It couldn’t be that. Subtle inconsistencies in their voices. Overtones of genuine humor in their rhetoric. Maybe they took some macabre pleasure in each other’s biting exchange.

  “...zzthlssss… “ Silence.

  The hissing faded, returned, fell in submission to the signal once again. He hadn’t moved the dial. There hadn’t even been a breeze. Good fortune.

  But silence.

  The bickering old man and his nagging wife, both suddenly mute. But the signal was clear, the hissing most definitely fallen under its strength. The two were no longer talking. Benedictine stared at the dial. The grass chilled him, as if every dark blade had begun to grow, digging through the jacket and into his belly, injecting early morning dew like ice.

  Silence.

  Did they know he was listening? That was stupid. Paranoid. They couldn’t hear him, or know he was here. Benedictine looked around the dark landscape. Trees loomed like monstrous pedestrians hovering around an accident, seeming to lean in for a closer look at the man sprawled on his belly in the dark. The man who stared in turn at the portable radio leaning against the granite slab.

  Benedictine was alone. Above him, stars ignited more brightly than he could remember. Nothing for miles to compete with their brilliance. No one knew he was here. No one knew he was listening.

  But if he could hear them, then why couldn’t —

  “Well,” said the old man, as if tiring of the stalemate. “Like I was saying, maybe you think I should get my head examined.” His voice was clear, but somehow devoid of its earlier passion. Speaking as if bored of this play acting. But so clearly, as if uttered from only a few feet away. Benedictine stared at the ground where he lay. “But do you remember when we were in our thirties... I think it was —”

  “You were forty-two and I was thirty-nine.”

  Benedictine jumped
at the old woman’s voice. Still coming from the tiny speaker, but never before this clear, this loud. As if drifting closer to the surface, bordering their world and his. He didn’t like this image invading his thoughts. He rose to his knees, eyes scanning the ground below him. The man rebuked his wife’s interruption. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say, yet.”

  “Yes I do… ssszzthh...” The signal fell below the watery white surface of static, a million living souls pushing those lost back under the waves. Benedictine stood holding the radio in one hand. It hissed as if angry, too far from the ground, from the couple. He stared at the twin granite monuments.

  They died together, recently, probably arguing all the way to the end. It was a car accident. He’d looked it up at the library. Only eleven months ago. Maybe that was why their signal was so strong. The thought seemed ludicrous.

  He walked further back, the shadows of the spectator trees closing in behind him, waiting for his next intrusion. The flashlight’s beam bounced across various epitaphs. Some more interesting than others’, but still too recent. Here. Twenty years ago. She died three years before he’d been born. Young. Mid-twenties.