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“Walkin' in the sunshine, sing a little sunshine song
Put a smile upon your face as if there's nothing wrong…”
- Roger Miller
“Ole olady olady I oh
That's Hardrock, and Coco, and Joe…”
- Stuart Hamblen
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As a child, the man slowly slipping into full dissociation as he dug deep into a lone grave, never would’ve guessed the Boogeyman was the kind of crypt-break to grant small favors. The man fell back onto the dark wet mush, nails clotting more mud into the dents of his skin. He fisted around the marker while a breeze in the night air, cold or maybe semi-freezing, rolled across his back. He was weary of his nose which could get all kinds of gooey in such death-weather. Congealed slobber would not make the mess feel any more bearable.
The rain from the past four nights gave the dirt a pasty texture, all the better to grope at. But as he continued to claw downwards, it began to feel as if he were pawing against six hundred lit cigarettes. With each heavy handful, the mud streamed down Dick Holliday’s veins with the beady heat of candle wax. That of course didn’t keep him from the job at hand...haha. No. Dick pressed on and dreamed of his abandoned glass of Merlot--maybe now on the lips of the wrinkly old bastard he’d left in his car.
Dick had just finished painting the long row of cabinets in his damn kitchen. A pale green shade---‘Mint Spring’ don’t you forget it---but he wondered now if that work had gone to the shitter, what with the ‘I’ll make it look like a suicide’ business from his wife’s brat. ‘Well who the hell killed themself after such a difficult makeover?’ He pushed harder into the earth. But would the police ever be aware of that detail? Would his wife, friends—perhaps his ex-wife—have enough sense to say ‘No sir, my good buddy Dick could not have tied that noose! He just painted his kitchen a few days ago!’ The task had required domestic planning and a great deal of effort, he would not have gone through that trouble if he wanted to die in the near future.
Unless of course, the redecorating itself had been the last straw. He was (is) the guy to crumble when nothing came up heads on his quarter. The cabinets were streaky and a final coat might just fix it up. Maybe ‘Mint’ wasn’t a dominant color? Emerald. That had been his true honest 1st choice. Plus, Ruth liked it and he trusted his daughter the most in the world.
A short, static shock of pain twitched behind his eyes. He naturally paused, accidentally grounding himself and pinching him back into reality. Dick rubbed a hand under his chin and felt the soiled mud run down his throat.
Sitting up on his tucked legs, he leaned back on the tools he’d been provided but neglected and found a sharp corner of blue poking from the hole. He was dead weight for a minute or two as he helplessly stared. “Oh le olady” He stood, slowly grabbing for the large wooden handle behind him. “Olady I oh-'' A manic giggle rolled down his tongue, his eyes were large and animated, and his smile...cartoonishly handsome. He missed his green cabinets and wondered if he’d ever get the chance for that last coat. But now came the dirtier work. “Oh le olady, ohlady I oh” Dick held his breath. “That’s Hardrock and Coco and Hoe--” A puff of air shot past his ears as he stuck the garden tool into the sludge.
There was the next step. One he tried not to think about. The stupid brat hadn’t prepared him for the sight of a dead man, especially one so freshly buried. ‘This was not going to be anything like Dot Sigerson’, a family friend who was most likely close by, and he hadn’t had the responsibility of handling her corpse...being that he was only twelve back then. So he was in no rush to invade this ‘Loving Brother & Son’s privacy but he had to mind his borrowed time. His wife’s exploits, sucking people dry without flinching and throwing their bodies away like juice packets was business she kept away from his weak heart. He never saw those bodies (‘packets’).
He took what he hoped would be a fleeting glance over his shoulder just to find the man leering out of the passenger side window. His skin was a dusty pink that sagged into the bruised blues under his sockets. The eyes, glaring a nasty yellow shine, sent chills whistling through Dick’s bones.
The sudden sound of the mud suckling under his knees pulled him away. “Very sorry, sir. Trust me.” He whispered with dread timbering in his voice. He stabbed the sharp tool over and over into the foliage of Grover’s Rest, wondering if the Boogeyman was a psychosomatic symptom.
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The present company grew unsettlingly more irritated when the headlights of the vehicle approaching their rear flooded Dick’s car with sensitive light. He saw the man lurch forward as if given a tizzy. “You know–” Clutching the wheel, he cut through the silence. Mother always said his mouth would go on flapping past his burial date. “I have some cough drops in the glovebox if you…”
“Will you just shut it, Dick.”
Dick rolled his eyes. “Webby, if you could just tell me what my wife wants with this…this body, this Mr. Crawler–”
The screwy man only laughed, that ugly wheezy bat-shit kind of thing, and twitched in his seat. “Your wife has nothing to do with this.” He said simply but the statement made Dick freeze. His hands gripped the wheel and he swallowed thickly like a child with a sore throat.
“You’re not supposed to do big shit without asking her.” He didn’t know much about what Webby was to his wife and he didn’t want to ever know. Though someday he’d have to ask if Mrs. Holliday continued to steamroll him and kept on filling his head with the same ideas she terrified their daughter with. He watched a small bug cross the windshield and felt silly in his thought to send it off with a prayer. ‘Good luck in that man’s stomach acids–’
Webby slammed his hand down on top of what turned out to be a small spider and popped it into his mouth. “Legend…story-telling….monsters. They're all a very funny thing is all.” Webby smiled, legs peeking out from the cracks of his beautiful teeth.
Dick glanced at him when the next light went red and sighed. Something like tar was beginning to crawl up his throat as something like suspicion came upon him. He usually ignored those since marrying Mrs. Holliday, formerly Ms. Legalla. The ex-wife, Ms. Sota once again, still told him he was a dumbass to do so. “Know your place.” His voice tried to be sharp, carving away the neurosis he felt.
Webby laughed madly. It shook his window. “Know yours.”
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[Fall, 2017]
Ruth Holliday thought about the butterfly at Brookfield Zoo often. It had frolicked with his friends in the air of its sheltered greenhouse. Orange and black. Monarch. Boring but still beautiful. Rael caught it on his finger while the worker had her back turned and offered it to her, she’d been thirteen and had tasted his blood for the first time just the night before.
Mrs. Annalise, a proclaimed expert on the insect was busy showing off to the children when she let it crawl up her finger. She’d been slow then and didn’t quite have her lurch correct yet but she managed to capture it between her teeth and swallowed it whole before anyone could see. Rael, thirteen too, smiled but it tilted and twitched…she’d never forgotten that.
She was eighteen now and still thinking about the Monarch. Shaking her head, she got up from her small bed and crossed the dorm to where she’d left her tiny cell phone, ringing now in its sparkly new mint case sent by her Father, whom she loved more than anyone. “Hello?”
“Hey, I’m outside–”
Ruth reached out for the doorknob and smiled softly when Rael appeared, tall and gangly with their own phone against their ear. “You may come in.” She teased them and made room in her small dorm which she’d paid extra to share with no one. Plants lined the window ledge and beakers of ‘creepy-crawlies’ sat on her desk.
They trotted inside and looked around with awe. “The place looks good. Sprucing it up, huh?”
Ruth swallowed and shrugged. The answer was yes. At least, she was trying to but her fancy had not been stricken yet. “Parents call, yet?”
Rael frowned. “Nah. Busy. Yours?”
“Dad has, a few times. Mom…once. Mrs. Sota called just this morning to ask how I’ve settled in. She wants to come and see me.” Ruth heard Rael’s spark of interest and plopped down on her bed, the basic white sheets were still all she had and she was aching for a larger comfy blanket and an even larger, comfier pillow to fill the space. “Mrs. Sota is as close to a friend of the family as we get, Rael.”
They nodded, taking the spot open at her desk and shedding their shoes as they set their ass on her half-done Math homework. “I never saw why your Mom puts up with her and I’m worried she’ll burst on you one day, s’all.”
“I think it’s s’wonderful you care about me, Rael….”
“S’marvelous?”
Ruth grinned, thinking too much about the evenings they spent curled up and watching movies together. “S’awful nice, at the very least.” Those days were far gone now, she remembered. She picked at a loose thread on her jeans and turned her chin down. “But don’t worry. She’s fine with Mrs. Sota, for whatever reason, and I’m not scared of her.”
Rael stared her down, eyes not intimidating but gently concerned. “You’re not going to tell her are you–?”
“No.” She brought her face back up to scowl. “I don’t want her to know because I am ashamed not because I’m scared of her like you are.”
“Ruth. I’m not scared of her.” Rael rolled his eyes and laid back on her bed with a sigh. “If anyone’s scared it’s you. Just not of her.”
Ruth turned away, rubbing the back of her neck. “It happened to Uncle Webby.”
Rael sat up again, sliding to lean against the wall, and looked at her with eyes that cared. “Webby is Webby, Rue. That has no bearing on you. Your Mom is trying to scare you. It’s a myth. An urban legend.”
“And one shouldn’t believe in myth?” She turned, gesturing between them. Rael seemed only capable of rolling his eyes again. She took that as a win and went back to her homework, thinking about the day they broke up. The day, just a month and a half ago, that her fears started to feel possible.
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[Summer, 2017]
It ended in the same place it began. The fucking zoo. Only this time Rael and Ruth were lost somewhere in the Great Bear Wilderness while the sky turned gray above them. The masked sun had Rael feeling confident and unmeasurably relieved. It hadn’t been the sunniest day but still…it hadn’t felt good. The brewing storm would be what Ruth blamed everything on for months. Their last kiss had been that morning under the entrance sign and had she known…maybe she would’ve remembered to enjoy it more. Maybe she would still know what the touch of his lips felt like and less like one of his many victims.
“What did you want to see next?” She’d asked, the map open in her hands.
Rael moved in beside her, their backs to the thick brown bear appropriately named, Sunny. She felt him, Rael, creep up like a shadow, and a great feeling of comfort flooded her. Like a blanket of her own feelings, it muffled her sense of Rael. They were connected. Intertwined. She could always discern his mind. But her own solace of his closeness blinded her and she hated herself for it.
“There’s actually something I want to talk to you about, Ruth.”
She’d turned, eyes scrubbing into him from under the old baseball cap she’d bought near the Butterflies…the damn butterflies. Alarm bells were binging to ring. “What?”
Rael swallowed and from that, she knew. Like a strong waterfall, everything she should’ve been aware of thirty seconds ago poured onto her weakening body. “I’ve been feeling some things lately and—”
“You thought you’d break up with me right next to fucking Sunny the bear?” Ruth crumbled the map and tossed it to the side. “I feel it like fucking boiling water in my veins, Rael. Wanna taste?” She held up her wrist and he snarled at the idea. “You cheated.”
“I hate being in tune with you sometimes.” That was all he had to say.
“A cat must have got my fucking tongue because I have no clue what to say to you right now.” She turned, and the stirring in the sky finally became a gentle dribble of rain. “The girl in your Psych class? Huh? You know what’s gonna happen to me if we break up!”
“That cat doesn’t hold back your theories, does it?” Rael rubbed his forehead.
Everything hurt. Ruth could hardly breathe. She was right. She could tell because her mind was open to it now. The blanket was gone. “It’s not a theory.” She mumbled, feeling nothing short of terrified. Her nose tickled and her hands shook. It was as if her body was being eaten alive, guts steaming as gnarly teeth chomped everything down and he—well Rael barely flinched. He was uncovered, out in the open and he didn’t even fucking care.
“G-g-go fuck yourself.” She’d felt pathetic enough that turning away and running off didn’t feel so embarrassing. From Rael though, she felt that embarrassment. Embarrassed that his ‘girlfriend’ was throwing a tantrum in the Zoo in front of like two fucking families. How could she help it? ‘I’m fucking eighteen.’ She thought before crying out abruptly in a sob.
She had been able to break free of the wilderness and passed a set of restrooms, Tropic World, and Feathers and Scales before sliding down a concrete wall. She’d realized she’d still been wearing his coat and threw that shit down in the dirt before moving towards The Living Coast. Never had she felt so miserable and alone. Rain spattered and spit down on her as her scalp slid down the hard wall. She smelled the blood and dreaded Rael being able to do the same. But it was hard to move from the ground. It felt like the appropriate spot for such a sad sight. But she crawled forward and helped herself up.
A metal chair in the little lunch area was where she found herself…. absolutely losing her mind.
“Oh!” She heard before something pressed against the back of her head. She tried to turn and was met with a waitress of some sort. “Sorry, I didn’t have a towel and your head is all scrapped up.”
“So?”
“So….” She pulled whatever it was off the back of her head and showed Ruth a bloodied piece of sandwich bread. She had to laugh. They both did and they shared it like a delicious meal. She was perhaps the most beautiful girl Ruth had ever seen. That girl with the bloody bread.
Her hair was full, large, and curly and her smile glistened. Her skin was brown and soft from just the look of it. She set the bread down after pressing it a final time against Ruth’s head, leaving crumbs in her black hair. “I’m on break. Mind if I sit?”
Ruth wondered if Rael was looking for her and knew he was instead finding shelter from the rain. “No….not at all. But I should really find the guy I came with.”
The girl nodded. “Are you okay though?” She curled her fingers around the other metal chair and dropped the bread on the table.
Ruth checked in on herself. She felt broken and sold for parts. A paralyzing, spiraling feeling of dissociation. “I’m ok…just…can you walk with me?”
The girl smiled. “Yes.”
Together they left the lunch area and Ruth happily obliged when she felt the girl interlock their arms. “I’m Lorraine.”
“Ruth.” She answered, hoping the bastard somewhere in the wilderness felt her happiness.
They walked in companionable silence until they approached the dirtied jacket behind a small metal fence. “His jacket, huh?” Lorraine asked like she knew and she probably did. Ruth was probably extremely transparent in those moments. She nodded, and they looked at it for a solid minute before picking up pace again and leaving it behind.
Ruth never forgot Lorraine.
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What she chose to forget was Rael’s betrayal. Mostly for the sake of her Mother and what she’d been telling Ruth her whole life; If the human familiar and it’s Vampire keeper didn’t fall in love, the familiar fell to the wayside. In other words, the familiar went insane…like Uncle Webby, whom she loved truly but…
“Someone’s knocking.” Rael’s voice interrupted her train of thought.
Rael sort of slunk back into a place of love in her heart. It wasn’t healthy, it never would be but how could she let him go when they would have to operate together until…well forever? She stood and strutted to the door, she’d made no friends yet so it was highly likely to be—
“Kimberly!” She smiled, not giving a single shit about Rael and instead hugging his girlfriend for him. While Rael himself was a difficult subject, Kimberly was a girl she could get behind. She read old ‘Fear Street’ paperbacks, made being nice a priority, and most importantly she hadn’t known Rael had a girlfriend when he cheated with her, everything she owned was pink and her favorite band was Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young. How much cooler could a person get? If she hadn’t stayed with Rael for love…maybe Ruth would’ve stepped in on her. She smiled and enjoyed the smile returned.
“Hey babe.” Rael got up from his spot and waited.
“Hey. I didn’t know you’d be here.” Kim chuckled, pulling off Ruth with her hand curled around her upper arm. “I came for a little girl talk actually–”
Rael held up his hands in defeat and started on out. “Go ahead, girls. I got an exam to study for anyway.”
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