Blood & Gristle Read online

  “Take me?” Lisa frowned and then tried to smile. “Look, this seems kind of personal, I’m not–”

  “One of us?” Margret finished for her. “I know sweetie, but demon–”

  “Demon!” Kyle exclaimed.

  “Demon,” Margret continued calmly and wiped the tears from her eyes. She had gotten her emotions in check. She had to be strong for her boys and Lisa. “He was very clear. When the box arrives, everybody in the house, friends, family, anybody, must have a turn or everyone dies.”

  “Dies!” This time, Kyle, Timmy, and Lisa, shouted in unison.

  “Okay, okay, everyone calm down.” Howard raised his hands until his boys and the girl fell silent. “This is…bad, there is cause for…worry…but I think we’ve gotten off track a bit. When your mom says, Demon, she means, Franklin Demon, the gentleman who made the proper…alterations. He’s not a demon, that’s just his last name. He’s actually a…how do I? He’s a… He’s a genealogist, in a long line of genealogists that have chronicled our families, your mother’s, mine, a few thousand others. He deals in history and…our special place in the world.”

  “I think we are all a little more worried about the dying part, dad.” Kyle crossed his arms and frowned at his old man. What the hell have then been keeping from me? What the hell was going on here?

  Lisa rounded the table and stood by Kyle. “I want to go. Take me home.”

  “Please, please,” Howard raised his hands again. “Let’s just take everything slow and easy.” He figured it was better to change tactics. His boys and Lisa did not need to know all of the details. They didn’t need to know about Mr. Demon or necromancy or any of it. He figured he owed it to them, but they were too young and too impetuous and telling them everything would just make it all the harder for them to go along with what needed to be done. He’d save The Xiium Carta and The Black Diaries for another time. If they all made it, if some of them made it, then he and Margret would sit down and explain everything. If they didn’t make it, it didn’t matter anyway, and if one of the kids got skittish and tried to leave none of them would survive to hear anything about anything. “All you need to know is that we each have to open the box. After we are done some remarkable things are going to happen.” Howard forced a smile. “Some wonderful, remarkable things, that you will not believe, are about to happen.” He smiled wider.

  That Kyle’s dad was smiling helped. He was a nice man. Lisa liked him and she stuck with Kyle for these past two months because he had the potential to grow into someone as handsome and nice and smart as his dad. She wasn’t sure what to make of that dark comment – the dark will take you – but if Kyle’s dad said, remarkable, wonderful things were going to happen, and then she was in. Lisa could use some remarkable, wonderful things right about now. She squeezed Kyle’s arm and walked back around the table to her spot. Kyle’s dad smiled at her. She smiled back. A hiccup of doubt thickened her throat. Men had lied to her many, many, many times. For the past three years, from sixteen on, they’d lied and coerced and gotten her to do things… Well, she’d rather not think about any of it, but there was no reason for her to trust Kyle’s dad. But she sort of trusted Kyle. Lisa pushed the misgivings away and listened to the man.

  “Okay then,” Howard looked from face to face and affected another smile. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Kyle thought all of this was horrible. If this was a story, it would turn out horrible. Why were they worried about the box? Why were they each supposed to open it? Why were his parents being so vague? As an author, none of this would do. As an author he’d take more time to dig and push and prod until he had a solid foothold and he was certain his readers were following, enrapt, enthralled, turning the pages like lightening. But, this wasn’t a story and as a son, as an anxious, blue balled, antsy young man, his dad’s curt explanation was good enough for him. He wanted to keep his dad happy so he and Lisa could get out of there and finish what they started. He wanted to drag her into the back seat of her Honda Accord, bust a nut, clear his head and go eat some pizza and Mojo potatoes. “Onto the climax,” he mumbled and then leaned in to take the reigns and unwrap the mysterious box. His quip, the bit about approaching climax, was not an intentional, authorial metaphor. He didn’t purposefully link sexual release to this pivotal, box opening moment and he was even more impressed with himself that it charged from his brain and fluttered his lips without any sort of planning. Hot damn! He felt like a real writer here.

  The moment his hands came in contact with the butcher paper wrapping, the box flared red hot. The brown paper instantly incinerated and Kyle burned layers upon layers of flesh from both of his palms. He recovered, blurted out “Son of a bitch!” cupped his hands and then tried to cool them down with a few breaths.

  “Kyle!” Margret admonished. Yes, this was a tense situation, and yes, this was an exceptional situation, but still, her sons were not to cuss. Especially in the presence of a young lady.

  Kyle hugged himself, tucked his palms under his armpits, and squeezed them. The pressure helped a little. But not much. The burn tingled deep, too deep. Kyle had burnt himself before here and there. His mom’s curling iron. The stove. Working on his friend’s dirt bike. But this was different. This burn kept going and going, deeper and deeper, until his bones shook with heat.

  “Kyle?” Lisa called from across the table.

  Kyle played it off and mumbled, “I’m fine. Fine.”

  “You sure?” Howard asked.

  Kyle shook his heads yes and tried to ignore the ramping pain.

  “The box chooses.” Howard quoted Mr. Demon and then frowned and slowly put his hand over the box.

  With the butcher paper burned to ash, the real box sat before them. Kyle’s burn, the dissolving paper, fear, everything distracted, and Howard, Margret, Timmy (who had spent the past minute trying to keep himself from crying – though he wasn’t sure why), Lisa, and Kyle, only now just noticed.

  It was metallic, mirrored on all six sides (well all five visible sides) with the same pale pink insignia (the round recycling symbol Timmy noted on the butcher paper) stamped into the center of each mirrored surface. Nobody noticed the symbol except Timmy, but he was too busy trying to keep it together to think much of it. Everybody else silently winced at their funhouse mirror reflection.

  As Howard’s hand hovered over the box, the box began glow a deep, deep red. He quickly pulled his hand back. The glow instantly disappeared. Margret, anxious to get this over with, followed her husband’s lead and put her hand over the box. The cube went red hot and then cooled when she pulled her hand away.

  The five of them stood in uncomfortable silence. The next step was for Timmy, or Lisa, to put their hands over the box, but neither of them made a move. Timmy thought, I carried the thing in and it didn’t burn me. He didn’t know what that meant, he didn’t know if it meant that he was the first (though it was plainly obvious), and rather than ask or take the initiative and find out he kept quiet and still. Lisa thought, this isn’t my problem, this is weird and crazy, I gotta get the hell out of here. Howard thought, the girl goes next then Timmy. Margret, even though she saw Timmy touching the box earlier, still thought, the girl goes next and then my Timmy. Kyle thought, fucking shit, this shit fucking burns and then grunted at Lisa, “Go, babe.”

  Lisa looked from Kyle to Kyle’s dad to Kyle’s mom to Kyle’s brother and back to Kyle. They all encouraged her in some way or another – Kyle with a pained look, his dad with a warm smile, his mom with a nervous smile, and his brother with wide eyed fright. She looked at the box and saw her self reflected back upside down and shimmery. An uneasy chill ran the length of her spine. Lisa shook her head and then whispered, “No way. I’m not touching that thing.”

  “You don’t have to touch it, sweetie.” Margret imitated hovering hand motions. “Just hold your hand over it so we can see.”

  Lisa shook her head no and then walked around the table and moved into the kitchen.

  It took a second
to process, but Howard snapped to it and then gave chase. “She’s trying to leave!” He shouted as he ran into the kitchen and grabbed at Lisa’s arm. Lisa pulled away and ran for the front door. Her left foot brought her a long stride close to freedom, but her right came down in the sticky puddle of Mega Dew and dashed her hopes. She tripped, twisted her ankle and came down on her right hip…hard. Before the pain had time to set in, Kyle’s dad was dragging her through the kitchen and back to the table. Lisa fought and kicked. She felt Kyle’s mom grab at her legs. “Kyle!” She screamed and craned her neck looking for the boy who, despite his crazy parents, should be helping her.

  Unless…

  A horrible thought struck and momentarily gave her pause.

  Was he in on it?

  Was this like one of those TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE families? Was this a ROSEMARY’S BABY?

  While Lisa was self aggrandizing, casting herself in the role of a tortured scream queen, Kyle was indeed readying himself for action. He wanted to jump at his parents, roar them down, and then extricate his girlfriend from their clutches, but the burn that sizzled in his palms, spiraled out of control and it was nearly impossible to think of anything but fire. He bit his lower lip and squeezed his arms tighter, crushing his stinging palms against his upper ribs. The fire bore into his heart and wormed into his soul, and everything, thought, fear, dreams, memory, purpose…burned.

  Howard and Margret shoved Lisa up against the table, Margret awkwardly securing the girl’s hips and calves while Howard had hold of her left wrist and was trying to force her hand over the box. Lisa strained and screamed and was this close to giving up – she wasn’t cut out for this scream queen stuff after all – until the most unlikely of saviors stepped up.

  “Stop!” Timmy’s annoying, pubescent shriek interrupted everybody. Margret froze. Howard froze. Lisa Froze. Even the burn hollowing Kyle out, froze. Timmy blinked out a few tears. If you have a soft spot in your heart for middle school children, this would have melted your heart much in the way same way puppies melted Margret’s, Lisa’s, and Timmy’s heart. “It’s me!” He yelled and then, just, like that, he leaned in and put his hand over the box.

  The second his palm hovered over the mirrored surface the room began to hum. Margret released Lisa and ran around to stand near her little boy. The humming, deep, deep sound, that worked its way deep, deep into everybody’s brain, created an invisible force field of sorts around Timmy. Margret butted into it forehead first and fell, tail bone first, onto the hardwood, dining room floor. Howard let go of Lisa and ran to his wife. Lisa regained her composure and turned to Kyle. Kyle continued to hug the hell out of his burning hands, which had cooled a bit in tandem with the humming, but not so much as to provide relief.

  The hum grew in intensity and all eyes turned to Timmy. Margret’s tailbone stopped hurting. Howard’s concern for his wife dried right up. Lisa’s waning fear and mounting anger (at Kyle) disappeared, and oh, merciful mercy, the heat ravaging Kyle from the inside out ceased. They stared at the adolescent – not by choice mind you. The same ethereal power that crept invisible and relived them of their thoughts and afflictions also captured their eyes and held their attentions prisoner.

  As for Timmy, things were no different. He too was held enrapt, frozen, staring at the mirrored box while his family and Kyle’ hot girlfriend stared at him. He wanted to look away. He wasn’t the most hyper thirteen year old in the world – no, that honor fell to Rasmus P. Hendricks, a twelve year old living in Jackson, Mississippi (poor kid – what would you do if your name was Rasmus?) – but he felt like coming out of his skin. He felt like running a million miles an hour, a million miles away. But alas, he was trapped, his eyes glued to the box, his body given over to the bone sick hum that seemed to arrest time and pause humanity like he paused his DVR whenever a naked chick came on TV.

  The box gleamed brighter, bigger, and its top surface faded away slow and sure reminding Timmy of when he messed around with Photoshop and tweaked the opacity levels of this or that. Like the time he grafted his cute, but mean, English teacher’s face onto the body of a porn star. He dragged the magnetic select tool around the naked, spread eagle girl’s head, slid the opacity to zero and then scanned a yearbook picture of Ms. Melon into his computer. Then he circled Ms. Melon’s head with the select tool and dragged it into place over the porn star’s washed out face. After a bit of blurring and painting, his handiwork near seamless, he opened a fake g-mail account and blasted the obscene picture to the school directory. Poor Ms. Melon quit (and later committed suicide – which wasn’t completely Timmy’s fault, she was a bit unstable to begin with) and Timmy dodged a bullet. Their new teacher, a long term substitute with a funny stutter, didn’t even bring up his missing research paper. He passed seventh grade English with a solid B.

  Anyway, the top of the mirrored box faded away as if erased by the power of Photoshop and Timmy’s captive eyes went wide at the swirling, black, tornado spinning within. It belied the box’s twelve by twelve dimensions and seemed to rage on forever – a dark tempest, tearing across the universe.

  Its torrential pull sucked Timmy’s mind through his eyeballs and spun his vision inward. Every selfish, snot nosed, bratty moment of his short thirteen years played out in his head. From the time he threw a fit at the mall because his mom wouldn’t buy him a particular video game, to the time he stole three candy bars in succession, gobbling one and then returning to the liquor store to pilfer another, to the time he peeped in Kyle’s widow and jacked off while his brother got a blow job from his last girlfriend, Irene - the heat of his jizz killed his mom’s prized hydrangeas and he blamed it on the neighborhood cat that kept spraying their front walk with nasty ass piss – every bad thing he’d every done (and they numbered in the thousands) came to glorious, horrible life. The lying. The violence. The selfish greed and piggish want.

  It was a shame the box had to come now, when Timmy was at the height of his self absorbed assholery. If it waited a few years, perhaps he would have matured into a caring, responsible, compassionate adult. As it stood, he was a heartless little prick, and while he relived and regretted every vile moment and self serving choice, his outer body began to seizure violently.

  His mom and dad and brother and even Lisa (who was soooo done with Kyle and his family) wanted to go to him and hold him and stick something in his mouth to keep him from swallowing his tongue or whatever it was you were supposed to do for seizure victims. The humming held them fast though, and all they could do was watch.

  The seizure reached an apeshit high, then turned…gruesome. Timmy’s skin began to split. His thrashing sent buckets of blood flying. The red stuff spattered the force field surrounding him and dripped down invisible walls. His skin cracked and peeled, curling away like so much burning paper, revealing red-purple muscle and gleaming white bone. Timmy screamed to high heaven, his mouth impossibly wide. A snout, a pig snout to be specific, inched its way up and out of his throat. Exposed bone and muscle melted into a waxy gelatinous mess and then hardened into pinkish pig skin. The snout rose and rose and poor little Timmy’s entire face came apart in shreds of pink and red and white and yellow. The grisly mess melted and melded into the pink pig skin forming and pumping and shaping itself into a full-fledged pig body.

  The screaming stopped.

  The invisible blood walls, splattered with gobs and gobs of gore, dripped slow and steady.

  Framed by the gore, turning and floating where Timmy once cried and cowered, a fat, blood soaked pig squealed and thrashed.

  If the four spectators had control of their bodies their jaws would hit the floor and they would proceed to freak out. Given the ceaseless hum all they could do was stare…

  …until the whole bloody, porky mess disappeared, and the mirrored box’s top rematerialized.

  The hum died away.

  Margret was still sprawled on the floor. Howard still leaned over her. Lisa still angled toward Kyle. Kyle still hugged his palms against his ribs. They had ea
ch regained dominion of their bodies. The pain returned. The hurt returned. The fear returned. And on the cusp of feeling, they all freaked the fuck out.

  The freakout, as it were, lasted a solid five minutes. In that time, there was much screaming and crying and hemming and hawing and lamenting and worrying.

  After getting everything out and burying his sorrows (he’d mourn his son later – if there was a later), Howard brought them all back to order. “There is no stopping this!” He shouted. Not exactly inspiring, but it was what it was and everybody (except Kyle who was still grinding his teeth in silent agony) pulled themselves together.

  “All right. Okay. Good. Good. Now, let’s just finish this.”

  Margret couldn’t shake the image of her baby boy being torn asunder by a pig. She wanted to get this over with as soon as possible so she could lock herself away and cry her eyes out. Zero thought, she thrust her hand over the box, anxious for her turn, anxious to die or live, or move on, or whatever that sharked tooth Mr. Demon warned of so many years ago. She didn’t care what happened anymore so long as she had time to herself to miss Timmy and properly internalize his passing. The box glowed red hot beneath her hand and she pulled it back with a frustrated grunt.

  The tears she so desperately wanted to save for later exploded forth and she shook from her core outward. Howard moved close and held her. He rubbed her head and whispered, “It’s okay, baby. He’s okay, baby.”

  But Timmy wasn’t okay. He turned into a fucking pig and then disappeared and now Lisa understood why Kyle’s parents wrestled her to the table. The dark would take her. They were just trying to save her (and them). She watched Howard hold his wife and a little warmth flared behind her heart. Then she looked at Kyle all hunched and sullen, not a comforting bone in his body, and the cold flooded back in. She wished he was more like his dad. This was horrible and it seemed as though there was nothing that could be done to change it or make it better, but Kyle’s parents, their love, their comforting arms, somehow made everything…romantic. She could deal, or at least deal a bit better, if Kyle would only hold her and comfort her.