King Scratch Page 6

  Peggy’s hand made its way to my back and her fingers traced my scar. She poked it with her fingernail.

  “Christ, Peggy, watch it!”

  “So sorry, love, I forgot,” she purred, moving her hand away. I pointed to a street sign three blocks away.

  “We’re almost there.”

  “Thank god.”

  “This has been one hell of a fucking night,” I said, realizing that it was an understatement like no other.

  “It can only get better,” Peggy said, sucking out some remnants of deer blood from beneath her fingernails.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Black Boned Keith

  Pancakes were still on Keith’s mind when he spotted Jim and Peggy walking hand in hand in the moonlight.

  A smile of aggravation split his face open to reveal Keith’s very yellow but very straight teeth. Red Henry’s root was in his left hand and a Pall Mall was in his right. He dropped the cigarette and slipped the root back into his jacket pocket. The smile became more annoyed as the pain in his knee intensified. It started to click with each step.

  He had arrived at Red Henry’s house too early. Laura had wanted him at the house after Jim but the car crashes had made sure that her plans were fucked. Keith wasn’t aggravated because he cared about Laura’s plans. She had her reasons for asking him this favor and they didn’t concern him. Instead, Keith was pissed because, in a way, Jim had gotten the better of him as did the old man.

  “My father’s harmless,” Laura had told Keith.

  “But if he tries to stop me?”

  “Push him aside or something but you’re going to have to end up making it look like Jim did it and that means using a knife.”

  “And Peggy?”

  “She knows what to do.”

  “I hope so,” Keith muttered, watching Jim and Peg walk toward him, towards Price Street. He quickly planned a route in his mind and started to run down a side street in order to come up to the backside of Red Henry’s house.

  On Douglas Street, Keith saw the back of the house. He’d have to cut through someone’s side yard but he wasn’t too concerned. The house was quiet and dark with no signs that a dog was present. Hopping the fence in one silent motion, Keith walked over crabgrass to the back fence. He made his way over, reached the back corner of Red Henry’s house, and waited.

  A few minutes passed. Slightly heavy breathing and footsteps echoed up Price Street and reached the house. After he heard the front door open and close, he walked up the left side of the house and up the front steps.

  Keith caressed the crab-shell and opened the door. He was greeted by a warm fist that rattled the teeth from his gums.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jim

  “Next time you sneak up on someone, try not to make so much fucking noise,” I said to Keith while he was on the floor, holding his bloody mouth. I have to confess that it wasn’t just his squeaky shoes that gave him away. The soft night wind brought the cigarette smell to my nose and I saw a shadow on the side of Red Henry’s house that looked suspiciously like a person lying in wait.

  My mind had quickly made the deduction that someone was waiting for me and after the previous events of the evening, I didn’t find it too surprising. As I was mentally patting myself on the back for this, I heard someone stomping up the basement steps. Red Henry flew through the door and stopped inches away from me.

  “Jimmy!” Red Henry shouted, putting his hand out for a second but thinking better of it and instead put his arms around me. “C’mere, son.” He hugged me hard and I wondered if he even noticed Keith picking up his own teeth from the floor.

  “Henry, how you feeling? Laura called me, she thought something was wrong.” I returned the hug.

  “Oh, I’m fine except that this asshole right here broke into my house and stole my root.” Red Henry had noticed Keith after all.

  “Root? What root? What are you talking about? This guy was here before?” I asked, giving Keith a kick in the ribs. I heard Peggy gasp as my foot connected.

  “My lucky root, my devil’s shoestring, the one I got in Louisiana when I met Laura’s mother. This little son of a bitch stole it!” Red Henry nearly spit on Keith’s head.

  I grabbed the collar of Keith’s jacket and stuck my fingers into his bleeding mouth, shoving them around like an epileptic dentist. His eyes filled with tears. “You bite me, you’re dead,” I told him. “What the fuck are you doing here, Keith?” The last time I had seen Keith was when he had asked for a piece of the moonshine action. I had declined and he had not been pleased.

  He obviously couldn’t speak while my hand was in his mouth so I took it out and let him catch his breath. His voice sounded like a squid’s voice if a squid could talk after years of smoking a pack a day.

  “Downstairs,” he said, “money.”

  Of course. What other fucking reason does anyone have to do something stupid like break into a house?

  Keith was losing a lot of blood, so much so that I was wondering if perhaps he had already been bleeding on the way in. There was a platter of blood in front of him which held a couple of yellowish teeth. Keith’s eyes didn’t look right.

  “Dead babies,” he said. He was delirious, yes, but he reminded me of the satchels in Fred’s car and the one that I had left in the woods. He kept talking through a broken mouth: words strewn together by a fading consciousness.

  I said, “What the hell do you know about the dead babies?”

  “You fuckinspanlc Christ don’t know shit need smoke smitty fuckin’ taxi shit,” Keith replied.

  I turned around and saw that Peggy was sitting with her arms wrapped around herself, obviously scared and confused. I wanted to hug and comfort her but couldn’t get the nerve. Red Henry looked at me and so I asked him.

  “Is there money downstairs?”

  “What? Money? No, no, I don’t keep my money downstairs. I don’t even have any money, shit. I gave my savings to Laura’s little sister. She’s having a hard time, you know. Her husband is a junkie, sold a lot of the stuff in the house for dope. Even stole from me the last time they were here.”

  “Then what’s downstairs?” I asked.

  “Oh, downstairs, downstairs, yeah, that’s right. Woo, you got it. Downstairs, Jimmy, downstairs. I’m going to need my root back,” he rambled. That familiar glaze came over his eyes. He started rummaging through Keith’s pockets and found his root.

  Keith grabbed my ankle and pulled it forward. I fell right on the boney part of my ass. It hurt like hell. The bottom of my foot landed right on his nose causing a cracking sound that made Peggy gasp yet again.

  The floor was slippery so my first attempt off the floor was shaky but I managed it. Red Henry was staring at the wall and twisting the root around in his hands. He walked away and headed for the cellar.

  There was a soft knock on the door. I figured it had to be Laura. I opened it slowly, my hands ready just in case. I relaxed as I saw the pretty face and figure of my ex-wife.

  “Laura, this is a fucking mess,” I said, motioning for her to look at Keith on the ground. Her eyes lit up in surprise.

  “Oh my god, what happened?” she asked, putting her hand on my shoulder. I looked over at Peggy to see if she noticed.

  “This guy broke into your dad’s house before and then came back after we showed up,” I said.

  “Oh my god….I told you someone was there when I talked to him on the phone! Leaving someone his age here is dangerous especially someone with his condition,” she said, reminding me of our fight concerning Red Henry’s potential move into our house. She had needed her space. She didn’t want the burden of her father. I, on the other hand, didn’t mind taking care of him.

  “We should have taken him in,” I said. Her eyes turned to narrow slits.

  “Oh, don’t give me that. You think we had the money for that? Do you think I have the money for that now? Maybe you should be telling this to Gina, my dad’s little princess,” she said. I was then reminded of why we
had divorced in the first place. Despite her obvious intellectual prowess, Laura was a cold person with a bitterness that would awe even the most ja ded person. Any act of kindness or sweetness she showed was done so after precise calculation of how it’ll benefit her in the short or long term.

  “You’re still a goddamn bitch, Laura,” I said. I hadn’t wanted to say it, not really. I wanted her to know it, sure, but saying it would have let her known that I was harboring a grudge and that meant she still had some power over me.

  “And you’re still a fucking drunk. Still a naïve son of a bitch that’ll trust anyone who gives him attention,” she said, her mouth twisted showing off more wrinkles than I realized she had. Her eyes darted to Peggy.

  Keith poked his head up and looked around. He looked at Laura and then me. Looking back to her, he spoke.

  “Fucked it up, Laura, sorry.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Black Boned Keith

  Laura shook her head and started to turn around. Keith’s head dropped and hit the wooden floor with a thump. Jim’s eyes widened. He looked at the two of them in cold disbelief.

  “What the fuck is he talking about, Laura?” Jim asked.

  “Nothing, Jim. Nothing at all.”

  “Fucking bitch!” Jim grabbed Laura’s arm.

  “Don’t touch me!” Laura hissed. Jim let go at this demand and looked down at Keith who was now shivering with a handful of teeth. They rattled like dice.

  Jim backed up, grabbed Peggy’s hand, and led her to the cellar. The door was unlocked. They started down slowly. With each creak of the stairs, Peggy’s hand loosened from Jim’s grip.

  The basement was dry and cold. Old Fisherville bricks made up the walls as they did in most of the houses that were built in the town within the first hundred years of its founding. In the years prior to the War, it was the world’s largest manufacturer of bricks. Fisherville’s clay was perfect for brick-making and when the demand was high, the town became a haven for those looking for work: mostly immigrants and men trying to escape a past that was either dull and domesticated or criminal.

  Jim eyes darted from one stylized letter-F to another. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Peggy was no longer holding his hand. The room was empty except for rusty buckets, milk crates, and cardboard boxes. There was a small room on the far corner of the basement where Jim heard some rattling.

  The small room was lit by a light-bulb that hung from the ceiling. Red Henry stood under it holding a jar. Jim looked around the room. Shelves covered the walls. The shelves held large, cloudy jars of moonshine.

  In each jar, there floated an infant.

  Red Henry turned around to face Jim. He held up the jar. The infant inside shimmered inside and it reminded Jim of a carnival sideshow attraction. Except this attraction was one that someone was going to drink.

  “They moved me, Jimmy and now I know my purpose,” Red Henry said, his eyes glazed over.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Jim

  When I saw Red Henry holding the jar, I squinted and let my jaw fall open. I saw Fred and his satchels projected on a wobbly movie screen in my mind along with the satchel I left in the woods. Joe Gurney with a squid wrapped around his brain assaulting Peggy. His liquid seafood shit was still crusted on my lips and beard. Fred was dead in the trunk of his car, his eye socket resembling fruit compote. Keith frequenting the restaurant I had worked at and eventually he made a proposition that we should work together running shine.

  This whole thing was like some huge torturous puzzle where none of the pieces should fit but they do. It was like a big joke being played on me. That paranoid side of me was right. Everyone was out to get me. Everyone had a secret they were hiding from me.

  Looking at Red Henry and his room, I was disgusted but surprisingly in the mood for pancakes. I spoke to Red Henry.

  “Jesus Christ, what did you do?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Black Boned Keith

  “Jesus Christ, what did you do?” Jim said. He was interrupted by a six-inch blade to the back. Peggy stuck it in as if she was carving out a melon. There was even a small smile of delight on her face. Laura stared coldly with her arms folded. Keith had dragged himself down the stairs and was on the cement floor, watching in disbelief as he saw that whore Peggy shove a knife into Jim’s back.

  To Keith, it looked as if Jim was taking the stabs in a rhythm, his back bucking forward with every thrust. Blood spurt out in spirals down Jim’s back and splattered onto the floor. The way Peggy was moving her arm, Keith was sure that Jim was dead. Her arm shook as if only that part of her was epileptic and her wrist turned so much it looked like it twisted all the way around.

  As Peggy made her last stab, Laura walked over to her father. Jim collapsed to the floor and landed on one arm. The other arm swung around to trip Peggy. She fell backwards, her hand still holding the blade. Jim leaned back, slammed his fist on Peggy’s wrist so hard that Keith heard a crunching sound. Her fingers let go of the knife and Jim’s trembling hand grabbed it. He made one slashing motion and Peggy’s neck burst, giving birth to a red, watery flower.

  “Shit,” Keith muttered. He brought himself to his knees and then to his feet.

  Laura came out of the corner room, cursed, and rushed over to Jim. They fought over the knife and in the fracas Laura’s chest was slashed open. Now under her torn shirt waved a loose flap of skin between her heavy breasts. A deep red hole showed under the flap. Keith looked at it and thought about strawberry compote and pancakes.

  Jim let out a groan and sliced Laura one more time. Her hands came up to her nose or, more accurately, where her nose used to be. The tip of it was now resting in Jim’s beard. Laura fell back onto her ass giving Jim a chance to scoot away. The puddle of blood beneath him allowed for faster movement but Keith was right above him, his foot aimed at Jim’s face.

  Keith hesitated and Jim saw it. He grabbed the foot and pulled it forward. He shoved the knife into Keith’s calf. Between that and his mouth full of blood and teeth fragments, Keith passed out.

  Red Henry, meanwhile, was taste-testing some of his shine. He choked and pulled out a few strands of baby hair from his throat. They came out wet and he stuck them onto the brick wall next to the others. Each crevice of the room was filled with little flakes of baby that always seemed to be caught in Henry’s throat or teeth while he tasted a new batch.

  With his back opened up and gushing, Jim crawled over to Henry.

  “Henry…help…” he whispered. He was surprised he even managed to whisper as he felt as if his body was on fire with the core of the inferno resting deep in his back. Though he asked for help, he was fully satisfied to lie down and die on the cold cement floor.

  He looked down at the dust and at the stains that covered the floor of the basement. Jim didn’t notice it before but all of the dark brown and black stains resembled sea creatures: sharks, squids, octopi, and eels. There were even a few tiny scuffs that looked like humans which were in the grip or mouth of the creatures. With a rising cacophony of basement-sea sounds, they all began to move, flowing along the surface of the floor. Jim did a backwards crab-walk on all fours toward the wall. His head banged against brick and he slid down, his hair and scalp grinding against the wall. The sound of that grinding reverberated through his skull adding a thunderstorm to the sea sounds.

  When Jim whispered, Red Henry turned around, still holding the bottle. He held it up and looked at Jim through the underarm of the floating infant. The moonshine made Jim look pale and ethereal.