Small Magic: Collected Short Stories Part 13

Chapter 60: War is....

September, 1944. Somewhere in France. A lone M4A1 Sherman clanks into a clearing, the turret and pushed above a heavy morning mist. On the side of the tank, painted in awkward white letters, "Beezle's Boys" stands out against the olive drab hull.

"We're lost, I tell ya," grumbles the gunner.

"Go stuff yourself," the driver mutters. "The rest of the platoon was just here."

The commander chances a peek out of the top hatch, and he doesn't like what he finds. The ground is red, as red as clean sheets soaked in blood. The mist dissipates and reforms in small skyward tendrils like smoke pouring from the cracks in the ground.

"Slow up," he calls to the driver.

The tank slows to a putter. With another glance skyward, the commander pulls back into the turret, his last vision consisting of two log-like fingers descending to catch the tank in a pincer grip. Men tumble inside as the war-machine lurches into the air. The commander catches himself against the inner wall of the turret, his damp hands pressed against molded steel. He grasps the periscope and peers out.

Two enormous, smoldering eyes meet his. He cranks the periscope, finds chiseled cheeks in burnished red the size of Buicks, a goatee hanging like a mansion chandelier from a pointed tee-pee chin, and a mouth full of sharp teeth as big as toddlers. The metal walls of the Sherman vibrate with deep laughter as the teeth part. The commander opens his own mouth.

"s.h.i.+t."

The men tumble again, the tank tossed inside that nightmare mouth, lost inside the black gullet of the thing.

Chapter 61: Attrition.

He stared at the screen. The screen returned the gesture with a vibrant glow.

Tick-tick-tick, his fingers punched the keys. A quick head shake, and the word vanished with a backs.p.a.ce tick-tick-tick.

"d.a.m.n."

The screen glared. The man narrowed his eyes.

It was time, now or never, a whole array of overused idioms and limp metaphors. The man grasped his jaw in one hand and s.h.i.+fted it back and forth. The bone came loose with a muted pop. Unhinged, his mandible dropped open like the entrance to Wind Cave.

He started with the mouse, sucking down the cable like a wispy bit of pasta. The keyboard came next, a test run to see if the larger bits might fit. Tick-tick-tick a few keys dragged across his teeth was they slid into his throat--which, as it happened, expanded like a rubber balloon to accommodate the awkward snack. The speakers popped in, one-two, and the man sat back and took a deep breath.

The monitor would come last, he decided. With his fingers, he stretched his lips over the CPU tower, forcing it in in with a few, quick taps. The cords, cables, and other loose paraphernalia rocketed down his widened esophagus.

The monitor didn't glare anymore. The man left it, alone, screen blank and muddy, on the desktop. He had won.

This time.

Chapter 62: The Man in the Hallway.

A man waits in the hallway outside my bedroom. He hasn't moved for the past few minutes, just hovering, lingering-casting the jagged, shadowy outline of his face on the wall. We play this waiting game almost every night. I know Mom would laugh, turn on the light and say, "See silly. No one here." But she works tonight, and I'm alone in the house with Dad and the man in the hallway. I build a coc.o.o.n of my thick comforter and squirm inside, warm but s.h.i.+vering. I pull the blanket over my head, vanis.h.i.+ng, making the shadow of the man disappear.

Dad moves around downstairs; I can hear his heavy-booted feet stomp across the kitchen tile, the house quiet and dead save the sound of his feet and the opening of the refrigerator and the fizzing sound of a beer can popped open. I think about crying out, yelling for him, but I'm afraid of what might happen.

My covers, bulky and warm at first, stifle now, and I sweat under the weight. Slowly, gradually, I slip the blanket from my hot face and breathe in the fresh, cool air of my bedroom, delicious after the sticky humidity inside the coc.o.o.n. I can now hear the m.u.f.fled voices of the TV as they float up the stairs and into the hallway. The man remains out there, just on the other side of the stairs. All I see is the crooked shadow, but I know.

Watching his shadow almost drives me to sleep-slow, plodding sleep that creeps gradually into my room with soft feet and a gentle touch. I've learned tricks though. I pinch my arms and legs, s.n.a.t.c.h a bit of extra skin and squeeze hard between forefinger and thumb. This helps fight the sleep. In the early morning light, I often study the purple blooms where I pinched too hard.

Tonight the TV mumbles stop before I pinch or sleep, and I hear my father tromp into the kitchen again. His boots move toward the stairs now, just at the bottom, and the light snaps on, brightening the stairwell and hallway. The man in the hallway is hidden, a dissolving shadow in the light. The stairs groan under my father's weight, old wood rubbing together, and I hear him stumble and curse. I can almost smell the stale alcohol on his breath. I'm sweating still; even with my head out of the coc.o.o.n, small beads form on my forehead. I try to lift up, climb out of the bed, but the heavy comforter resists, and I'm weak from waiting. The creaking sound edges up the stairs, and the man in the hallway waits. I have to warn my dad.

The sounds merge-my pounding blood, the heavy steps, and the breath of the man in the hallway-and I close my eyes, squeezing them so tight I feel it in my teeth. I break and yell, "Dad!"

I hear a quick sound, a m.u.f.fled thumping on the stairs followed by the heavy, dull crash at the bottom. I draw into the coc.o.o.n again before I open my eyes and wait for my panting to subside. Slowly, cautiously, I peer out again to see the light in the hallway and no hint of the man-either hiding or gone.

When my mother comes home, she struggles against Dad's body, crooked and limp as it blocks the front door at the base of the stairs. I don't see her because I am here, in my bed, but I can hear the door unlock, and the soft pounding of wood against his body, her gasp and sudden sobs. Then the dialing of a phone, the quick sharp words, more sobs and the sound of the ambulance. I roll over, away from the open doorway and the hall-still bright after Dad turned on the light-and wait.

Chapter 63: Vintage Suns.h.i.+ne.

Two boys wiggle through the last few feet of earthen tunnel and drop, one after the other, onto the concrete slab below. Small puffs of dust dance into their flashlight beams.

"Bomb shelter," the smaller boy says. "Really old bomb shelter." His draws his beam across a shelf of cans. The labels, once displaying bright fruits and vegetables with bold words, now wear a layer of filth that mutes the colors. "S'pose there's still anything in these cans?"

"Dunno," the big boy mutters. Shooting from the hip with his flashlight, he lumbers to the shelf in front of him. "This one looks good." He sets the light on the shelf and pulls the can toward him. "Heavy," he grunts.

"Look, maybe we should go..."

"s.h.i.+ne your light here," the big boy says. He pulls a s.h.i.+ny device from his pocked and digs around the lip of the can. The tiny machine makes a dull hum as it cuts through steel.

"Really, should you open that? It's been down here for what, a couple hundred years..."

"Shut up." The big boy folds his tool and latches onto the can lid with his fingertips. He peels back the metal disc and fumbles for his flashlight. A crash sounds, followed by the metallic thunk of cans. .h.i.tting the slab floor.

"Sorry...I tripped."

The big boy frowns, turns to the can, and s.h.i.+nes his light inside. A smile creeps over his frown. "No s.h.i.+t," he mumbles, thrusting his hand inside. A moment later he fishes out a few limp, pale-green tubular objects. "Green beans." He brings them to his nose and sniffs. "Still good, too."

"You're not going to..."

"Watch me." The big boy pushes a few beans into his mouth. "Well-aged," he mumbles through the green mush.

Chapter 64: "How Many Times Do I Have To Tell You That The Dog Ate My Homework, Madonna Spit In My Face, And Aliens Abducted Me Three Times But Only Probed Me Once?"

"It wasn't even painful," Marcy said.

June frowned. "Getting the F on your paper?"

"No...not that."

"The spit?"

"No, silly."

"Oh," June said, nodding. "That."

"Of course, it would have been nice if I didn't have to ask. I figured 'third time's a charm'. Right?"

Chapter 65: Daddy's Touch.

I'd worked with Helen for a few years before her father died. She was a quiet woman, always reserved and meticulous in the lab. Some of the other techs called her "cold" or "too weird." I just figured her the private type.

We worked together in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the natural history museum on campus, stashed away in a windowless box next to the offices for graduate teaching a.s.sistants. We spent our days stripping the flesh from dead mammals so they could reconstruct their skeletons. We used beetles, these little black lumps called Dermestidae-skin beetles. Toss a poor, dead piece of road kill in a stainless steel container with some larvae, and the growing beetles lick the bones clean within a week. Our boss used to say, "They're carnivores. They eat the flesh of the dead."

Helen received the call about her father while at work, and she didn't even flinch. She only missed one day for the funeral, a private affair, and stayed late at work the next night.

In the days after her father's stroke, Helen looked a little off-her face pale and stretched-tired maybe. The only thing she'd say about him was, "he was not a nice man." About a week after the funeral, I noticed bruises while we worked together scrubbing residue from small mammal femurs.

"Helen, your arm," I said.

She pulled down her s.h.i.+rt cuff. "It's nothing."

After I mentioned the bruises, she started wearing long sleeves. Black bags puffed under her eyes. She faded, bleached like a field of snow, pinched together and gaunt, like she wasn't sleeping much. Maybe a rough boyfriend, I thought, especially if her father had been abusive. I imagined there had been abuse in her past, but my theory rested on gossip and interpretation of Helen's stock line: "He was not a nice man."

Fear for Helen's safety grew in my stomach, scratching away like a ball of nails until it spilled over one night after work. Helen faded like a ghost through the lab doors, and I followed her.

Filled with worry and concern-as a friend and coworker, I drove to her apartment. She lived in a little place near what we called the student ghetto, the run-down houses and squat apartments that served as home to a good number of undergraduates. She didn't answer the bell and the front door was locked. I heard something-a m.u.f.fled voice from inside.

I wouldn't usually sneak around in the bushes like some kind of half-crocked private eye, but the voice scared me, sent a chill across the back of my neck. I crept to the side of the house, and the voice grew clearer. It was Helen.

"Please, Daddy!" she shouted, followed by a dull whacking sound.

I balanced on her air-conditioner, caught the lip of her bedroom window with my fingers, and pulled myself to tip-toe so I could peer inside. Helen was alone in the room, flogging herself with something that looked like a short stick or bat, but a yellowish white-a human femur stripped clean of its flesh as only Dermestidae could. A skull, her father's skull, sat on the dresser, watching over his daughter's self-abuse with a gallows grin. Helen's face, though smeared with tears, wore a small ghost of a smile. When the police came, they found the rest of him in her bathtub, his a.s.sorted parts in various states of decomposition amid a swarm of beetles.

Chapter 66: The Truth about Rabbits.

The car is black, devouring gravel on a side road to the lake. Two men ride inside, both wearing wrinkled suits and loose neckties. The driver tightens his grip on the wheel. Lined up in the headlights, a jackrabbit freezes, then bolts for the shoulder.