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Fear |
Appointment |
Rate |
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Ana S. |
2682 Porters Way |
Aliens (Fire in the Sky) |
SAT 20 JUL 7:00 |
$12 |
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Donny M. |
1466 Foxchase Dr |
Clowns (It) |
SAT 20 JUL 7:45 |
$10 |
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April C. |
3147 Shady Oak Dr |
Living Dolls |
SAT 20 JUL 8:30 |
$10 |
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Liana M. |
12 Richard St |
Dream killer (Freddy) |
SAT 20 JUL 9:00 |
$8 |
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Jefferey S. |
22 Helen St |
Zombies (fast) |
SAT 20 JUL 9:30 |
$8 |
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Maria C. |
660 Harrand Creek Dr |
Basement (noises) |
SUN 21 JUL 8:00 |
$6.50 |
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Caroline T. |
1172 Deefield Dr |
Puppets (not dolls) |
SUN 21 JUL 8:45 |
$6.50 |
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Zach B. |
773 Antler Dr |
Toothy Sea-life |
MON 22 JUL 6:00 |
$10 |
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Nazeem A. |
357 Briarwood Dr |
Tooth Fairy |
MON 22 JUL 7:00 |
$10 |
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Jessie T. |
159 Yellowleaf Dr |
The Dark |
MON 22 JUL 8:00 |
$8 |
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Vivian C. |
3816 Buckridge Ave |
Under the bed |
MON 22 JUL 8:45 |
$7 |
Saturday, July 20, 1996
Therapy Fodder
or
Primordial Soup for
the Pre-teen Soul
Our
twelfth birthday came and went uneventfully.
In lieu of cake and presents, we requested forgiveness for our previous
misdeeds. In lieu of absolution, Marlin
was gifted a simple silver necklace passed down from our grandmother, and I was
given a smooth-worn copper ring that dad used to wear when he was my age. Both, we were told, were good luck through
the rigors of our upcoming teen years.
It took
mom and dad[1]
just short of two weeks to forgive and forget.
Our business venture, being unilaterally supported by our parents, kept
us occupied, employed, and out of trouble during their working hours. Provided we agreed to not perform any more
amputations, they[2]
agreed to let us completely off the hook.
Unless,
of course, they[3]
needed to guilt us into some chore or another they felt we were slacking off
at.
Our time
was occupied by our newfound employment, including more research at the local
library than either of us had bargained for[4] and rehearsal for scheme
hatchery. We learned early on that going
in without any knowledge of the monster on the night’s billet raised immediate
red flags with the client. Kids can be
surprisingly clever, and specific, about the things that keep them awake.
The
breadth of our knowledge turned us into unwitting psychologists, allowing us,
as it did, to not only pretend to kill their monsters, but to unravel the fear
behind them. Library time was, honestly,
time well spent and enjoyed.
Also, I
wanted to feel cool and organized, so I kept detailed spreadsheets of
appointments, clients, addresses, payments, and fears, weekly, on whichever
version of Microsoft Excel was running on the family’s janky Windows 3.1
computer. After transcribing from
computer screen to page, due to an inconvenient lack of household printers, my
journal, which I had so rigorously kept up with, recorded a whole lot of
nothing personal in the intervening weeks.
It stopped looking like the self-centered ramblings of a pre-teen boy,
and started looking like the ledgers of an accountant gone mad.
All told, Marlin and I brought home
$30 to $50 a night for what amounted to a few hours of performative banging on
pots and pans.
So, despite
the ignominious start to our summer, things had definitely turned around for us.
Soren came to the library with us and came home with an
armful of books.
We had to come back home because, for some as of yet unknown
reason, bringing in weapons – however cheaply made they may be, and backpacks
full of random monster fighting gear – was prohibited. In
Soren’s room because he always wanted to be around us, even when we weren’t
paying attention to him.
“Where to first, dear brother?” -packing around soren, his
nose in his books.
“Porters Way, dear sister.
Antonina Seel,” I answered, checking the schedule helpfully arranged by
(me) who paid the most first. “She the
one with the thing about aliens.”
Soren, nose still in his books, “Can I come?”
“No.”
“Ugh, why?”
The phone rang.
“Because then we’d have to split the money with you.” We said at the same time and laughed.
Back to his books, “You are such dorks.”
“Children! Phone for
you!” mom called up.
Marlin “I’ll get it, finish packing?” She walked out to my room – where a phone
was.
Picking up where marlin left off, “You love us.”
“I would love you more if you took me with you.”
I tussled his hair, sat plopped down next to him, and gave
him a side hug. “Just trying to keep you
safe little bro. You need some muscle on you first.” Seeing his grumpy expression, “What if, hear
me out, what if I promise to take you trick or treating this year? Marlin will go work, and it’ll be a guys
night out. We’ll go where ever you want,
that we can walk to.”
His little face shone like a light bulb, he looked up and
held out his pinkie, thought better of it, then held out the opposite pinkie so
I could shake it, “Promise?”
I shook it.
“Promise.”
Marlin came back in, “That was Desi, she’s asking if we can
swing by in the next half hour. She’s
got a new kid.”
I could have said no, probably, but it was Desi. A regular of ours, trying to earn enough
money over the summer to enjoy her upcoming senior year of high school without
working during that time. Pretty, older,
girl, Desi. I lied, I couldn’t say no, I
had hormones to contend with. “Yes!” I
said, my voice at a completely normal volume and totally not cracking at
all. “I mean, sure, yeah. We can do that,” nailed it.
“Uh huh, somehow I figured you’d be okay with it.” She grabbed her backpack and tossed mine to
me. “Shall we?”
“Hold down the fort until we’re gone?”
He waved us away without bothering to look up again.
The bike ride was hot and muggy. Sun still out, late summer meant even at 6
pm, we still had two hours until the sun went down.
Knock knock, in an extra deep voice “H-hey Desi,” totally
cool. Totally professional.
“You are such a dork.”
“Hey little dudes, come on in.” She led us, well, she led
Marlin, I practically floated, through the house to a where a forlorn looking
boy sat on a couch in pajamas. Desi
might have spoke along the way, but I caught a whiff of her perfume and was
momentarily dead to the world.
“This is Phillip, he goes by Phil. Phil, this is Marlin and Marcus (footnote
SEE?), they’re professional monster hunters.
I’m going to the kitchen to make you a pb and j,” she knelt down and put
her hands on his knees, stayed there until they locked eyes, “Hey, you can
trust them, I’ve seen the slay at least five.”
She left, the trail of her perfume lingering for just a second longer.
“That’s a cool sword,” phil finally said, bringing me back
to reality with a jolt, and earning me a swift elbow to the ribs from Marlin.
“Thanks,” I said, pulling it from the makeshift harness on
my backpack, “wanna hold it?”
“Yes.”
“It’s nice to meet you Phil, we’re here to help. What are we dealing with?”
“You guys really fight monsters,” he clutched the
sword. He reminded me so much of Soren
before that first night.
“It says so on our flyers.
Basically a full time job for us.”
“There’s an alligator in my room.”
“Under your bed?”
“No. He hides in the
water, and he started out small, but now he’s big, and…” he trailed off and
hugged the sword tighter.
“And what Phil? It’s
okay, we deal with all kinds of things.”
“I wasn’t scared at first, I tried to be nice. Everyone says stuff like they’re more scared
of me than I am of them. But I’m still
afraid. Sometimes, sometimes when I wake
up to pee, I can see him, and I’m too scared to get out of bed, and sometimes,”
he lowered his voice in shame, “sometimes I pee the bed instead.”
“Right,” we both stood, “nothing to be ashamed of there
Phil. Sometimes, I pee my bed because
I’m too lazy to get out of it,” I lied, but he laughed so hard Desi poked her
head out of the kitchen to make sure everything was okay.
Marlin grabbed her butcher’s knife, I took my sword back,
“Phil,” she said, “we’re gonna take care of him. And we’re gonna bring back proof. You ever eat gator?”
He shook his head.
“Believe it or not, it tastes just like chicken.”
He showed us to his room and we threw our backpacks on the
bed, digging through them to give the impression of setting up for something
more serious.
Phil
gave us one last desperate look of hope and a pitiful smile, then shut the door
behind him plunging the room into an unexpected darkness. We mumbled between ourselves about the
audacity until our eyes adjusted. Who
just turns off the lights when there are still people in a room? Rude.
Moonlight
broke through parting clouds skirting low on the horizon, just above the
treetops.
Moonlight.
Trees.
We were
sitting on a mattress, water lapping softly against a steel framed island in
the middle of swamp.
Only,
it was not a swamp. I mean, it was
a swamp, sure, and that raised a whole slew of questions on its own that I had
to completely ignore in the face of incipient madness. Therefore, I was forced to focused on the
obviously ridiculous instead of patently impossible. So, it was a swamp but, the but being
I have been to the swamp. I have camped
in the swamp. I have been forced on
god-awful boring school trips and probably alcoholic uncle bonding and fishing
trips to the swamp. This, this utterly
improbable thing in front of my very eyes, was lacking it its fundamental
swampiness.
There
were no clouds of suicidal gnats aching to make a trench run through my nasal
cavities in order to bury themselves in my sweet, sweet brain tissue. The air was normal, not so thick with
humidity you could drop an iodine tablet in it and drink it purified an hour
later just as easily as you could breathe it.
No ever-present
pervading stench of rotting vegetation.
No stagnant, totally opaque brackish water. No swarms of supermassive southern mosquitoes
that were direct descendants of pterodactyls.
No spiderwebs spanning several meters weighed down by the desiccated
remains of ten years of small vertebrate meals and Alabama pollen[5] just waiting to cling to
your face and give you a case of sudden karate while the eight legged
monstrosity whose evolutionary journey paralleled the meteoric rise of the
mosquitoes crawls patiently down your back in the dark.
What it
did have was a sensible amount of pelican sized dragonflies, glittering orange
and blue and green metallic bodies carried aloft on expansive diaphanous wings,
drawing long v shaped ripples across still, clear moonlit waters.
Rich
verdant vines looped around perfect brown branches; grey moss hung in the
spaces between. Fireflies danced in the
shadows. Clouds drifted at speed, always
framing the moon but never obscuring it.
Trees grew tall and powerful, Cyprus knees sticking up like jagged teeth
in water around them.
Unseen
frogs croaked. Birds chirped and sang in
high chorus, momentarily silenced by the deep throated bass squawk of something
much larger and clearly aggravated.
As I
took the scene in, one frame at a time, it finally dawned on me. I had been right; this was not a swamp.
This
was an artist’s rendering of a swamp, lovingly recreated in painstaking detail
by someone who had only ever been told what a swamp was, without ever have been
to or seeing one in person. This…
Illusion
…was a swamp seen through the filter of a child’s imagination.
I had to tell Marlin about this
revelation, had to share what I gleaned, had to have her confirm she was seeing
the same thing I was and hear her tell me she was witnessing it too, and that I
was not going insane. Her back was to
me, she was trembling.
Fear? No.
Joy.
Pure joy. I could feel the bubbly, prickly sensation of
it crawling around in my belly like thousands of excited insectile feet. It was her joy, not mine, transmitted
directly from her brain chemistry into mine.
That discovery was only marginally overshadowed by the current state of the
world around us and filed under ‘further questions later.’ For a moment, though, I allowed myself to
revel in the emotion, letting it soothe me.
I
leaned in, “Marlin,” I whispered, “this isn’t a swamp.”
She
acknowledged my statement without turning, “I know.” Everything went quiet, everything seemed to
be listening. “It’s magic,” she told me
with unadulterated awe in her voice.
We sat
there together, mystified.
Impatience. Too much
time passing. Other appointments. And curiosity. I placed my katana slowly in the water, point
down and felt a solid, reassuring thunk about an inch in as it met with the
wood floor of the real room. “I’m going
in.”
In I went, sinking up to my knees in mud. Flailing, I grabbed the sword to stead
myself, cutting my hand on what had been, up until about five seconds ago, a
dull blade made of pig-iron and more suited to hammering nails than slicing
through anything.
The ambient animal noise of the swamp exploded into what
could only be interpreted as mocking laughter.
Marlin helped me back onto the bed, the muck sucking the
shoes off my feet as we fought to free my legs.
A single fat drop of blood rolled down my hand, time slowed
as we watched it fall to the water.
The laughter stopped.
The noises stopped. The movement
stopped. The cool, refreshing breeze
stopped.
Concentric ripples, small, growing into impossible waves,
sped away until the crashed against the distant trees.
The water clouded, murky, brackish. A buzz, a stink, the first drop of sweats.
Eyes. So many eyes.
The moon disappeared.
Ambient benevolence turn into the roar of malignance.
Ripples returned, there was something in the water.
It hit the bed. I
fell off.
Alligator, maybe? It
could have been anything, it moved so fast from the shadows. It lunged.
Bit into my arm, tore it of with one swift jerk of its massive
neck. Champing, the snapping of wet
bone. Description of tearing an arm off.
Teeth in chest and back.
Weight on me, ribs creaking like an old galley, snapping, pushing me
into the rotten mud, water over me, losing consciousness. Drowning as I screamed from the pain, tunnel vision, greying, the sound of distant
hammers (for some fucking reason).
Marlin, cast briefly in the moonlight, on top of the thing,
hacking away. Clouds moving across the
sky too fast. Drowning, lungs on fire,
couldn’t suck in water or air, ruined mess of a ribcage.
Then It was gone. All
of it. I was on my hands and knees
vomiting rotten, stagnant swamp water from functional lungs and bloated stomach
and stopped mid-hack. There was nothing
there. There never had been.
My arm was still on my body.
Clothes were shredded.
But a cursory glance revealed no injuries.
Check that.
Scars, old, ancient, faded and barely visible.
I decided to keep the shredded remains of my shirt on. But pissed pants forced me to change my
pants, and actual terror vomit forced marlin to change everything. Throw everything into a black trash bag we
kept ‘monster remains’ in (for the kids, obviously).
Desi thanked us, noticeably surprised when I had zero
reaction to her. Phil thanked us
profusely, rightfully convinced we had slain his mystery gator.
On the way home, we walked beside our bikes. Too dizzy to ride, the feeling of guilt
settling on us like the first time you drink while underage. Almost the same effect, too. Dialated pupils, dizziness, fits of giggling,
Silence. As it wears off, the horror
sets in, the confusion. You feel like
you did something wrong, that you need to apologize to someone, that there will
be some kind of retribution.
Paranoia took hold, the need for safety.
When we get home, we attempt to check in with parents, to
find they’ve left for a bit. Soren,
already in bed. Again, afraid of undeserved
retribution (but why? Our brains are weird at that age). Checking the corners in his room, under his
bed, in his closet, and both of us climbing into bed with him on either side
just to make sure he’s safe.
Never, ever, want to do that again. What if that was our fault? What is someone got hurt because it was
actually a ‘looking into the abyss’ type situation.
The phone rang and rang and rang.
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