Lambs Read online

  LAMBS

  Michael Louis Calvillo

  First Edition

  Lambs © 2012 by Michael Louis Calvillo

  Cover Artwork © 2012 by Zach McCain

  All Rights Reserved.

  DarkFuse Publications

  P.O. Box 338

  North Webster, IN 46555

  www.darkfuse.com

  Copy Editor: Steve Souza

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For Michelle—my teenage fever dream come to gorgeous life!

  As always, eternal thanks to my family, friends, and fans (that ever-growing legion).

  An extra special thanks to Shane Staley and DarkFuse for their unparalleled vision and for pushing horror fiction into the future.

  “I was a hand grenade that never stopped exploding.”

  —Marilyn Manson

  “The best substitute for experience is being sixteen.”

  —Raymond Duncan

  1. GROWING PAINS

  When Arthur awoke the slashes were back.

  His wrists yawned, ravaged by wide, deep gashes that revealed sinewy meat, yellowish bone and severed bundles of messy, wiry biology. A river of blood, half congealed, half runny, pooled around him and turned his sky blue sheets into a soggy, red mess. Tears welled and a gargantuan lump rose in his throat.

  It was happening again.

  Keep it together.

  After three long years the wounds were returning.

  Don’t cry.

  The ghosts were coming back.

  People are going to die.

  Nervous fear, nervous dread, nervous nausea overwhelmed, but there was no time for wallowing or thinking.

  Arthur took a long, deep breath, fought back those amassing tears, gritted his teeth and forced himself to get out of bed—when the van left for school he had to be on it or George the Destroyer, Cottonwood Group Home for Boys’ ever vigilant, ever repressive manager, was going to hit him with a crap load of write-ups and make his life more of a living hell than it was about to become.

  Getting ready for the day, Arthur tried to clear his head. Connor, his roommate, rolled out of bed and stuttered “M-M-Morning” in a sleepy rasp. Arthur nodded and tried to let worry go, but it was impossible not to think about how tough it was going to be pretending that everything was normal while his wrists bled and his stringy veins flopped about disconnected, lifeless like wet noodles.

  He hunkered down and pulled open the drawers that made up the base of his bed. Rivers of blood ran down his arms, over everything.

  How was he going to write or raise his hand or sit still or interact?

  What was his girlfriend Melanie going to say? (The BIG DAY was coming).

  How was he going to avoid freaking out?

  How was he going to think straight?

  And the blood. What was he going to do about all of this ever-flowing blood?

  Even now while he dug through the drawers for clothes, the red stuff continued to pour from his mutilated wrists and soak everything in a slick, slippery downpour.

  Though last night’s weather forecast promised an exceptionally warm day, hot even, Arthur had no choice but to wear a long sleeve rugby shirt with elastic cuffs. It was an ugly, ugly, ugly shirt, lime green with dark green stripes, that he got last Christmas and wore once before abandoning it to the bottom of his shirt drawer.

  Ordinarily, embarrassment would have overrode all other consideration—the unflattering thing had a few permanent wrinkles, it was a little small (he had grown considerably throughout his fifteenth year) and it was sure to get him teased—but humility simply wasn’t an option, it was the only long sleeve shirt he owned that would do the job. The elastic cuffs allowed him to keep the sleeves pulled down, way, way down, secure over his messy wrists, covering them from view completely.

  Gripping the cuffs tight, balling them up into each of his palms to hide the horror show undulating beneath, Arthur swallowed back mortification and endeavored to make it through the day by keeping to himself, thinking nothing thoughts, and disallowing his eyes to wander wrist-ward.

  * * *

  There were ghosts in his brain. Arthur knew this for fact. Nobody believed him and despite the clattering and clanking in his mind, he couldn’t really expect them to. Maybe he was cursed, maybe he was crazy, but it was what it was and the ghosts were what they were.

  Evil fucks, the trio of them.

  Tormentors.

  And everyone he had ever loved was dead because of them.

  * * *

  The very moment he climbed into the van, Santos and Gabe, his archenemies at the group home, mad-dogged him and gave him shit. Arthur held his sleeves in place and bypassed his usual seat next to Connor to sit alone in the back. The assholes followed him with their fat heads. They called him a “fag” and teased him for stretching out his too small shirt like a “fag” and asked him in-depth questions like why he was such a “fag?”

  Arthur ignored their idiocy and kept his head down. He grimaced at the large bloodstains soaking through the shirt, turning the thin, green fabric that covered his forearms a slick, wet black.

  Was there this much blood three years ago?

  It was tough to remember specific details.

  He was only thirteen back then and given the creepy ghosts and the gooey wounds and the grisly murders everything in his memory banks was a muddled, mushy mess. Until this morning he wasn’t even sure if everything that he thought had happened (the ghosts and the wounds and the murders) actually happened. Over the past three years he had begun to think (to hope) that he was just as bat-shit crazy as the probing doctors and psychologists pretended not to think he was as they raised their eyebrows and scribbled mysterious notes into their mysterious files.

  Arthur shook off fuzzy recollections and focused on keeping his head clear and simply making it through the day.

  Perhaps the bloody wrists were nothing, a daydream, a freaky episode, a side effect of his medications. Maybe they were a full-blown manifestation of his kooky fears?

  Perhaps when he woke up tomorrow everything would be back to normal?

  Perhaps.

  Perhaps.

  Regardless, whatever they were and however long they remained, it was a good thing nobody else could see them. Phantom wounds (oh yes, there would be more) tied to phantom ghosts were worlds better than actual wounds. Right? It was better to be mentally crazy than physically ruptured. Right?

  Gabe interrupted his thoughts with a paper projectile. The wad hit Arthur on the head and then dropped to the floorboards where it began to wither with absorption, siphoning red weight from the growing pool of blood that dripped from his soaking sleeves.

  “Hey fag? We’re talking to you fag!”

  Santos giggled and added, “Yeah homo, pretty shirt.”

  Arthur continued to keep his head down. The other group home kids, Jack, Shady, Johara, Alberto and Connor tuned out the inane taunts and gazed out the windows as the van ambled on and the free world whizzed by. Nobody wanted to get caught in the crossfire. Their driver Leon, who worked the graveyard shift at the group home and was supposed to be playing sheriff, kept his focus on the road and didn’t bother to intercede. This was his last obligation before his shift ended and he was too tired (or too ambivalent) to play the disciplinarian.

  Undeterred, the assholes went on and on and on:

  “You working the corner today cutie?”

  “How much for a hand job?”

  “Fag.”

  “Fudgepacker.”

  “Cocksucker.”

  “Damn, that’s
a pretty shirt.”

  “Yeah, I can see your tits.”

  “Yeah, show us your tits.”

  “Fag.”

  “Faggot.”

  Connor finally looked over in commiserate acknowledgment. He shook and shivered (like always—his mom did lots and lots of drugs before, during, and after her pregnancy) and gave Arthur a helpless what-can-you-do? before rejoining the others (albeit shakily) in their silent, longing stares.

  Without missing a beat Gabe narrowed his eyes and shifted the attack, “What the fuck you looking at you dumbass crack ho?”

  Connor flinched a little, but ignored the baited question and kept staring out the window.

  “That’s Artie’s bitch,” laughed Santos, “He sucks his dick every—”

  At long last, Tired Leon, eyes glued to the road, annoyance pulling at the corners of his mouth, finally chimed in and did his adult duty. “Enough!” reverberated through the van.

  Ordinarily punkass kids like Gabe and Santos would ignore such a command and tell a lackluster authority figure like Leon to “fuck off,” but discipline at Cottonwood was no joke. It was a level fourteen facility and when a staff member issued an order, you listened or else you paid the price. Consequences were severe, and worse, juvenile hall was only a few write-ups away. Even idiots like Gabe and Santos with diarrhea of the mouth and the need to ridicule flowing through their veins got real smart when told to button it.

  As the van cruised along in silence Arthur returned his attentions to the steady procession of bloody droplets dripping from his sleeves. Somewhere inside, where abstraction and feeling met conceptual logic, sketchy mental blurs of his ghosts began to form.

  Adele with her Victorian gown and silvery, ever-spinning, straight razor.

  Giuseppe with his crushing bulk and red, red rage.

  Fred with his coarse length of rope and his blue, blistery, broken perma-smile.

  Their black, black eyeholes.

  Chills ran the length of Arthur’s spine and he couldn’t help but to wonder who was going to die this time around and how they were going to get it.

  He pictured seeping slashes, gore-strewn holes, raw, ragged flesh.

  He pictured jittery outlines.

  He pictured hunger, desire and chaos in all of their resplendent, fiery, impassioned forms.

  Before concrete detail had the chance to solidify, he blotted them out and clenched his teeth.

  Focus.

  This wasn’t the time for the madness of ill-made memory (not that he could remember anything anyway).

  This wasn’t the time for falling apart.

  He had to make it through the school day first. And evening chores. There could be no freaking out until he was buried under his covers and the rest of the house was dead asleep.

  The moment Leon wheeled into the parking lot of Lincoln High School, Arthur took a few deep breaths. The van ride was nothing. He was able to keep his head down and (mostly) ignore his housemates and keep his increasingly despondent thoughts at bay. Once outside, out in the overcrowded high school hallways and classrooms it would be a different story.

  But he had to keep it together.

  His entire future was dependant upon it.

  He had to ignore the ravaged capillaries and rampant blood flow. Any more cracks, any more episodes, any more notes entered into his psych report about delusions and he was as good as locked up in the loony bin.

  Never mind that he was bleeding, that his wrists were splayed open in all of their meaty glory. Never mind the murderous ghosts on the rise. Never mind his world falling to pieces. Arthur had no choice but to force a smile and keep shit together and act like everything was as right as rain.

  Focus.

  He had done it before (age thirteen—yes) (age ten—sort of) (age seven—no) (age four—no) and he could do it again, this time better than ever. He was sixteen. Mature. Tight-lipped. Prepared. A master of deception.

  * * *

  More than anything he had to avoid his girlfriend Melanie.

  She wasn’t the kind to allow him to keep quiet and she would immediately take note of his distracted gaze. She would press him for information. She would hound him for answers. Unlike the rest of the world, she cared and she would try to find out what was wrong with him. If he wanted to make it through the day without breaking down he had to steer clear of her at all costs.

  Each morning, like clockwork (for the past three months anyhow) they met in front of her first period AP English class.

  The moment the van came to a stop he pushed past his housemates and jogged for campus. Tired Leon yelled “Hey?” and Connor, who he usually walked with, called “A-A-Arthur?” He ignored them both and visualized the layout of the school. Arthur settled on an alternate route and fast-walked the halls with his head down. Melanie couldn’t see him. She couldn’t see him. She couldn’t. He had to evade her eagle eye. Weaving around the art building, he passed the gym, so far so good, he passed the cafeteria, almost there, he rounded the library, and success! He made it to his first period class without being seen.

  Now all he had to do was ignore his friends. Connor was a year younger than him and they didn’t share any classes—which was a good thing, because though the guy was pretty much his best friend, he bugged Arthur to no end. Thankfully mornings were different—subdued, quiet—but by this afternoon Connor would be hyper-hyper, an endless barrage of questions and demands and he was going to make things hard. The rest of his “friends” weren’t really friends and ignoring them would be as easy as keeping quiet.

  Sitting in Mrs. Fielder’s dumbbell biology, wrists tucked away under his desk, lessons about mitosis and meiosis droning on, merely white noise murmuring beneath Arthur’s continual fight for anti-thought, he couldn’t stop dwelling on the tragic inevitabilities to come.

  People are going to die.

  The thought repeated, over and over, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  He tried to distract himself and stare at Medusa, the bastard rattlesnake Mrs. Fielder kept in a terrarium at the front of the class. It was an evil little sucker, devouring mice like nothing, always striking the glass and breaking its fangs in a violent effort to get at kids that loitered too close. If anything could pull him away from thoughts of impending carnage, replacing brewing fears with immediate ones, it was this reptilian demon. The fucker already made it tough to concentrate on concepts like cell division or esoteric thingamabobs like the endoplasmic reticulum. Arthur watched its dead eyes and flickering tongue and imagined it breaking through the terrarium, but no dice, even envisioning the slithering monster on the loose, within striking distance, did little to quell his disparaging death thoughts.

  People are going to die.

  The last time, three people were murdered—one for each ghost.

  Each time before, the same, or so he assumed, but was far from certain given the unreliability of his ten-year-old, seven-year-old and four-year-old thought processes.

  Not that memory or numbers or specifics really mattered, not that remembering details would save lives. If things went as they always did the body count would begin to mount soon enough. Tomorrow morning there would be another wound. Saturday morning, there would be another. On Sunday the deaths would begin. They would continue for three days.

  Beneath the all-consuming worry there was sliver of hope. Tomorrow could be different.

  He could be insane.

  He could wake up and his wrists might be healed, false alarm, crazy-crazy, and there would be no new afflictions and normality would resume and then he would be able to get on with...

  Oh crap.

  The date. THE BIG DAY

  Shit.

  Damned bleeding wrists.

  How could he have forgotten?

  It was all he could think about for the past two weeks. A glimmer hit him the moment he woke up, THE BIG DAY, but then the blood and worry scrambled his thoughts and washed it all away.

  Arthur’s stomach dropped.
>
  The date.

  Saturday.

  Two short days.

  Crap.

  At long last, here was something to pull him from deathly thoughts.

  THE BIG DAY.

  Living in a group home, especially a restricted facility like Cottonwood, made it impossible to be a normal teenager. He couldn’t go out like his civilian friends, except for school and the occasional supervised day trip with the rest of his housemates. After months and months of collectively screwing up, his brothers-in-dysfunction had finally gotten their act together. They managed both civility and responsibility over a prescribed period of time and as a result earned a day out. George the Destroyer and Marvin (just Marvin), one of the swing shift staff managers, agreed to take the boys to lunch at a pizza place and then to a late afternoon movie.

  What’s more, everybody at the group home knew about Arthur’s girlfriend. Nabbing a girl, a normal, pretty, smart, regular-Ed (honors classes even) girl like Melanie, was a cause for celebration amongst his peers and the staff alike. Arthur couldn’t believe it himself. She was gorgeous, a year older than him and smart. For reasons beyond his understanding, the beautiful creature was crazy about him. Just thinking about it made Arthur blush from the inside out.

  Upon the announcement of movie day, Marvin suggested that Arthur arrange for Melanie to meet him at the theater. George the Destroyer balked at first, but eventually came around and agreed that if she were to show up at the movies he wouldn’t be opposed to them sitting together. Of course they had to remain in the same movie as the rest of the group and there would be no loitering or long goodbyes afterward. If Arthur promised to stay on his responsibilities and be extra helpful around the home he and his girl would even be allowed to sit a little ways off from everybody else.