The Horribles Read online

  “Can you remember his name, Sheldon? Do you remember the name of the man that hurt your parents?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell me that name, Sheldon?”

  “Yes. His name was Oli Thompson. He was a bad man.”

  “That’s right. And what happened to him?”

  “He went to jail forever.”

  “Sheldon, later on, that awful man died in prison. He’s no longer outside. He can’t hurt you. Can he?”

  “No.”

  “What happened to your parents was chaos, just a terrible, terrible chance happening. The person responsible for their deaths is dead. There won’t be anything waiting for you—us—except for blue skies and fresh air.

  “Open the door, Sheldon, and welcome in the world.”

  “Ok, Doctor. Just don’t let go of my hand.”

  He closed his eyes and stepped through . . .

  s i x

  Open your eyes.

  The world had been knocked off its axis and flipped ninety degrees. Instead of seeing houses, streets, and a tree line, Sheldon only saw sky. Where did Dr. Nemiah go? She no longer held his hand. He wasn’t with her anymore. This wasn’t a therapy session.

  Parade, motorcycles, spider, fangs, the chase. His brain fed the events back to him in bite-size installments. The process didn’t ease the panic. He was growing catatonic; legs and arms stiffened. The intensity of his surroundings devoured his lucidity. Something moved next to him, temporarily distracting his plunge into irrevocable madness. He turned to face it. His back muscles screamed in agonizing protest.

  Impaled by the poker, the spider twitched once, twice, and then lay still. Up close, he could see it was welded together steel and what looked like tissue; a slab of hamburger with an Erector Set crammed into the meat. Legs and fangs were driven by cogs, springs, and gears. All of this was held together with strips of white tendon and greying muscle.

  It was something created, designed, and forged. And knowing that someone, or something, had constructed it was the most frightening aspect of the entire thing.

  The stab wound leaked motor oil all over the sidewalk. The gathering puddle made Sheldon think of his parents again. He had mistaken his father’s blood for oil. Instead of ceasing up with panic, he was taken over by rage again. Whatever made this spider and the evil that had killed his parents were of the same kind. He was sure of it.

  He had killed—destroyed—this one and it felt good, a sliver of revenge for his parents, but then Sheldon remembered the long line of motorcycles and the trailers they pulled. He gasped.

  Those trailers were full of things like this. Bigger, deadlier things. The whole town would be attending.

  Oh God. The children.

  Evan.

  He’d be there with his parents. They couldn’t protect him. Sheldon slowly worked himself up off the ground. He placed a foot on the underbelly of the spider. It squished and more oil seeped out. He grabbed the poker and pulled it free. He wiped it clean on the grass, turned around and looked back at his home, his fortress. Both his mother and father were in the window waving goodbye to him. He wanted to go back in with them. Forget about this whole ordeal. But when he took a step toward the house, his father shook his head no.

  There was no going back in once he was forced out. It was a bitter and caustic realization, like dry swallowing his medication, but he knew it to be true. Plunging through that door had been some form of rebirth. He was no longer Sheldon Delaney the agoraphobic, but still had no idea what he had become.

  He waved back to his parents, not surprised by the tear that ran down his cheek. They waved again and disappeared.

  He walked down his sidewalk and turned toward Columbine Street. He was barefoot and dressed in his plaid pajamas, his favorite pajamas. He had bed hair and morning breath. One hand held the poker, the other rubbed his back. He hadn’t thought of what he would do once he got downtown. All he knew was if something had happened to Evan that would be it.

  Lock the door and throw away the key permanently.

  His mind was so preoccupied with saving Evan, he didn’t even think about being outside, walking, breathing, living without panic. And it was the first time in years.

  Sometimes the best kind of therapy for fear is to face it head on. And drive a stake right through its rancid heart.

  s e v e n

  Evan Hovland knew the parade arrived long before anyone else. He could feel the rumble in his feet and smell all the exhaust before it even turned onto Columbine. How could no one else feel it? It’s humungous. Humungous . . . what a great word, he thought and scribbled it down in his notebook for Sheldon. The parade probably passed right by Sheldon’s home. He must’ve felt it too. Evan sighed, turned his head around to take in the crowd, and waited for the festivities.

  Everyone was here. And small town antics were in full bloom. Mrs. Olsen’s hair was as big as ever. And as impossible as it seemed, she figured out a way to wear even more costume jewelry. Evan thought she looked like a walking discount rack at a thrift store. The mayor was there with his legion of ass (Evan wrote “butt” in his notebook) kissers. Town drunks, reformed drunks, gossipers, cheating spouses, reformed spouses, and single moms with a string of children unaccounted for were all in attendance.

  Sheriff Boone’s police cruiser was parked lengthwise across the street and he directed traffic as if landing a 747. Evan laughed. His parents both turned and looked at him. He smiled back, and then returned his attention to the gathering.

  It was almost poetic watching the town interact. It was like a big bees’ nest or ant hill. Everyone had a role to play, and the players were cast perfectly.

  There was real excitement in the air. Evan felt it emanating off every person in attendance. Even he was a bit excited. This was the biggest event in Poe’s Creek for a long time. He wrote down every detail in his notebook for his good friend.

  He stopped writing when the first motorcycle turned onto Columbine Street. He didn’t have to be able to hear to know the crowd was utterly silent. Again, he could feel it. This was big . . . real big.

  e i g h t

  It had been years, but he still knew the route well. At one time this was all his, speeding along on a bicycle, where his feet barely reached the pedals, weaving in and out of driveways, hopping off his bike to look for loose change in the rain gutters. There were all sorts of things down along with the detritus and garbage. He’d found a baseball glove once, never figured out how it got there, and was never able to get it out.

  He wondered if the baseball glove was still there. His arms were probably long enough to reach it now. Suddenly, finding that baseball glove felt like the most important task at hand. It would be a closure of sorts to a broken childhood. He stepped off the sidewalk and crossed over to the other side of the street. As he walked, he could almost feel the small hand of a boy inside his own guiding him along the way. He bent down, and for one brief moment thought he saw the scuffed and aged leather of a glove. But it was a trick of the fading light. Nothing there but rainfall and rot.

  Defeated, he continued along the curb, dragging the poker behind, searching each gutter for intangible nostalgia.

  Even though he knew where he was going, it took a long time—a real long time—for Sheldon to make the trip. He was accompanied by newfound bravery, but the going was slow. Every third or fourth step a wave of nausea and dizziness washed over him. He’d lean up against a tree or a building. Sometimes he’d sit down on the lawn with his head between his knees, arguing with himself to take another step forward.

  But it was useless. What was he going to do for the city? Save it from this nightmare? There were people a lot stronger than him out there. He looked down at his tattered pajamas, dirty bare feet, and shaking hands before lowering his head in disgust. He raised his makeshift sword to eye level and sighed. Might as well impale himself on the poker and do the world a favor.

  Shut the fuck up and take another step! This ain’t about you. He stood
up, took a few more steps, and started the pattern of self-loathing all over again.

  Eventually he took a break, leaning his back against an old oak near the curb, and was struck with the sensation someone was watching him. He turned around slowly.

  Nothing.

  Everything was quit. No neighbors. No noises from any of the houses, which was unnerving. Where was everyone?

  At the parade . . . the dead parade.

  He was about to shrug off the feeling to wound up nerves, but something caught his eye on the front porch of the house directly behind him. There was someone (something) very small and hunched over sitting on a porch swing.

  Was it alive? A statue? Maybe something left over from the holiday.

  “Hell . . . hello?” Sheldon called out.

  No answer. Whatever was on the porch didn’t move either.

  Sheldon crept slowly toward the house. He climbed the porch, pausing after each step, the boards of the deck creaking loudly.

  God, it was quiet.

  Kind of like the inside of your house. You should feel right at home. It was his cynical self speaking now, thick with sarcasm.

  He stopped in front of a slump of blankets, tattered clothing and white hair; overgrown hairs poking from the end of a giant, pock-marked nose, ears like chewed on cauliflower, wrinkles and folds of liver spotted skin spilling from a prominent forehead over sunken eye sockets. Eyes squinted shut behind all those folds in an expression of concentration . . . or agony . . . a death mask? It was a person. Whether alive or dead, Sheldon wasn’t quite sure.

  Go ahead, big boy. Give it a nudge and see if its head rolls off into its lap.

  “Shut up!” Sheldon scolded himself while reaching forward to rest his hand on a shoulder covered in many layers of clothing and rags.

  Still no movement. He was about to scratch this particular casualty up to old age and not the parade, already disgusted with the idea of touching a dead person, when the thing leaned forward and spit out a never-ending stream of chewing tobacco that hit the deck wood with a loud splat.

  Then it laughed. The noise that gurgled up from its ancient throat sounded like a child choking on razorblade-laced Halloween candy.

  “Sir?” was all Sheldon could manage.

  It turned slowly toward Sheldon and stared at him through folded slits. “You’re the Delaney boy, aren’t you?” It asked with a crackled voice. It made Sheldon think of a fist closing over a handful of wasp wings. “Sure you are. Who else could you be? You stick out like a dirt colored birthmark on an otherwise angelic face.” He let loose another strangled laugh.

  “A damn tragedy what happened to your parents. But the town found justice, didn’t it? They caught that ol’ drunk Iso-Oli Thompson, the one who used to drink up all the extra Sterno on hand. Well, they found him curled up behind a dumpster with blood all over his hands. Your parents’ blood, so they say.”

  A coughing spasm interrupted the conversation. Sheldon didn’t want to talk about this, not with a total stranger, and particularly not with this stranger. Besides, he knew the story all too well. He stepped back, intending to leave the porch, but the old man snatched a claw from underneath the blankets and grabbed hold of Sheldon’s arm. It was so fast Sheldon didn’t even see it happen. One minute he was backing away and the next, the old man had one helluva grip on him.

  “Funny, though,” the old man continued, “Oli was so far gone with the drink that he could barely stand without swaying like a buoy. Strange how he could’ve overtook both your mom and dad. They were young and strong folk, those two.

  “But that’s how this town works. Call it sterile justice. Gotta stitch up the wound before it goes gangrene.

  “Yep. Justice was served.” He spat again, and Sheldon imagined warm blood from a freshly slaughtered sow hitting soiled pavement. “You know Oli died in prison a sober man. The booze had pickled him. Take away the drink and the body starts going bad. Swore to the very end he had nothing to do with those murders.

  “Wonder why Iso-Oli didn’t kill the young’un too.”

  Sheldon got the feeling the old man forgot he was talking to that particular young’un.

  “I figure whatever kilt them two Negroes was like an alligator. Gators drag their kill down into the riverbed and bury ‘em in the mud to soften up. Maybe that’s what Oli was doin’ with you. Waitin’ till you were softened up.”

  “Look, sir, you need to get out of here. The parade. It’s bad news.”

  “Hah.” Another stream of chaw shot from his dried and stained lips. “I stormed the beaches of Normandy. No need to worry about me. They opened the backs and we all dived into water over our heads. Some of us drowned. Some of us were mowed down by hungry bullets. I barely escaped myself. My brothers. They tried to take me down into the water too. Grabbed my feet and legs. I kicked away and swam for my life.”

  “I . . . have to go,” Sheldon meant to back away (run away) from the old man, but he tightened his grip on his arm.

  “The dead will hold you down, boy. Try to drown you like a rat in a washtub. Don’t let ‘em do it.”

  Sheldon finally freed his hand and backpedaled, stumbled down the stairs.

  The old man stood and the blankets fell from his lap. “The dead will pull you down!”

  Sheldon turned and ran away from the house, afraid to look back. But just before he ran, Sheldon saw what the old man was wearing. And it wasn’t the first time he’d seen them.

  The old man wore a pair of worn and scuffed leather boots with too many buckles on them.

  n i n e

  The rest of the trip did not take quite as long. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and the creepy old man (those boots!) as possible. Even so, if someone’s life depended on Sheldon finishing the sojourn in a timely manner there was a good chance they had perished while he was en route. Eventually he turned the corner onto Columbine and maneuvered around the traffic cones placed along the intersection. He walked with his head down, eyes fixed on his feet, one-two one-two, march-march. It was easy to pretend he was still in his living room, watching the halftime show on TV, marching along to the imaginary drums banging in his head.

  BOOM-BOOM, march-march, BOOM.

  BOOM . . . click-click-click . . .

  The clicking sound dulled the drums of his marching band. The clicking sound was new. It would forever remind him of being in the real world, in Poe’s Creek, where nightmares come true. He wasn’t in his living room. He was downtown, where the parade had been heading. As hard as it was to lift his head and look for the source of the clicking noise, he did. Slowly.

  Mister or Missus Twaley, it was hard to distinguish between the two with all the gore, was sprawled out, face down on the sidewalk in a rigor mortis-induced Superman pose. Sheldon knew it was one of the Twaleys by the matching warm-up suits the senior couple were fond of, although blood-soaked and shredded all to hell. Physically, if you took Mr. Twaley’s Hitler moustache and Mrs. Twaley’s bad perm-job away they were identical to begin with. Both being giant, walking bowling pins with textbook pear-shaped physiques. The blood covered up any other distinguishable features. All that was left were patches of naked, spongy flesh leaking insides all over the sidewalk.

  Click-click-click . . .

  Underneath all the girth grinded the mechanical legs of another abomination. Welded steel and stolen flesh scraped grooves in the cement. Mr./Mrs. Twaley must have fallen on the assailant, squishing it under a gore-seeping mountain.

  Pressed up against a picture window, Sheldon slid past the first of many horrific scenes in Poe’s Creek. He felt terrible. Only a few days ago, the Twaleys had walked past his house. He stood at the living room window and watched them waddle by. They had waved. He didn’t return the kind gesture and never would be able to.

  Underneath the corpulent body of his neighbor, the creature finally lay still. A single stream of hot motor oil spit against the cement and sizzled. Sheldon walked on. Still uncomfortable with the intensity of the
outside world, he held a hand up to his eyes. He gasped at the scene before him.

  At first, he thought someone had dumped a lifetime of dirty laundry out on the streets. There were big piles of linen everywhere. Whites and colors (mostly red) were mixed together. After a few more steps, however, he realized it wasn’t discarded wash. Those were bodies littering the streets, piled on top of each other, leaking their insides all over the pavement.

  There were only around four hundred adults in Poe’s Creek. If he had the stomach for it, he could’ve done a body count and the math would just about add up. There were bodies everywhere.

  What had been unleashed on these poor people? He shuffled closer to the carnage. Had it been more spiders? The Devil himself?

  Sheldon weaved and ducked through the bodies, not sure of where he was even going. He did his best at seeing without seeing, not letting his eyes focus on any of the carcasses strewn around his feet. He didn’t want to recognize the Mayor, whose eyes had been gouged out, bits of viscous eye-jelly clinging beneath his bloody, jagged fingernails, ears bleeding, or Principal Meyers with his house key buried deep in his own jugular vein, Darlene Hagan with a mouthful of meat the same size as the piece missing from her best friend, Suzette’s, face.

  That wasn’t the postman’s disemboweled body half-in and half-out of the small post office. No way was he chewing on a mouthful of his own intestines.

  The Sheriff’s dispatch, Joan, hadn’t smashed her head through a window, grabbed a large shard of glass and carved her face into hamburger.

  Sheldon did his damnedest not to recognize any of it.

  He refused to believe that his neighbors had done this to themselves.

  He did such a good job of not seeing that it took a while to realize none of the fallen were children. With this revelation, he forced himself to once more look around at all the carnage.