Dave Zeltserman - Bad Thoughts

“That’s what I get for trying to be a nice guy,” DiGrazia said. “Fuck you anyways. I’m too busy to spend my time babysitting an ungrateful asshole like you. As you know, I’m kind of shorthanded at work with my partner flaking out. And our little mamma’s boy hasn’t confessed yet.”

“You haven’t beaten it out of him?”

“I wish I could. Youth Services has got our little mamma’s boy wrapped up tight. They got a real asshole lawyer for him. The blood drops we found on the pillow weren’t from the victim. This sonofabitch lawyer is fighting us every step of the way. The State Attorney has to go to court Monday so we can get blood samples from the kid. You sure you don’t want to get something to eat?”

“Rather not.”

DiGrazia pushed himself out of his chair and shook his head slowly. “Just trying to do Susie a favor,” he said as he strolled out of the room.

A half hour later he returned sheepishly with a couple of subs. “I have to eat anyway,” he explained as he wolfed down a sausage sub. He had laid out a meatball sub heavy with onions next to Shannon.

“You going to at least try it?” he asked.

Shannon didn’t bother to answer him.

“You going to have to either eat it or get out of bed or lie there all day with it next to you,” DiGrazia threatened, showing a bare-fanged smile and looking more like a bulldog than usual.

“Or toss it against the wall,” Shannon observed.

DiGrazia wiped his hands on the paper bag the sandwiches came in and stood up. “I tried,” he said. “You can’t tell me I didn’t. Have fun lying there and rotting.”

Shannon closed his eyes. He didn’t bother watching his partner leave. When he opened them the room was empty, just him and his meatball sub. He groaned as he looked at it. Smelling it made him nauseous. Since he didn’t have any choice and really didn’t want to look at it all day hanging from the wall, he twisted himself over the edge of the bed and stood up, his legs wobbly. He picked up the sandwich and moved slowly out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen. There, he tossed it into the trash. On the way back, he stopped in the living room and collapsed into his imitation-leather easy chair. It was amazing how bad he felt. Like he was hungover, his head pounding, a hard, tight pressure pushing against his eyes, his mouth feeling like he had gargled with sawdust. He leaned forward and held his head with both hands. It was over a year, forgetting about the double shot of bourbon he had a month earlier and the half a beer he had the night before, since he had any alcohol and it was like he was now suffering from the DTs. A year of being mostly sober and now this. Just like all the other years. Thinking about it made him laugh. The laughing hurt, though, especially in his stomach. He leaned further forward, rubbing his head slowly, trying not to think about how badly he wanted a drink. After a while he stopped thinking altogether.

Of course, he had fallen asleep. Not really dreaming or conscious, just drifting along. Floating in a warm, peaceful blackness. Something was tugging at him, though, disturbing him, forcing an awareness within him.

And then there he was in front of him, grinning widely, ingratiatingly. Shannon knew him instantly. He was older than Shannon remembered-a good twenty years older-as if his memories had somehow aged equivalently with time. The man’s skin now spotted and bloated and sagging slightly around the jaws. His body thicker around the middle. His hair thinner, almost nothing where the ponytail had been. But there was the same malformed chin. The same tiny, slit mouth. And the eyes, pale, almost translucent, like a rattlesnake’s. Shannon felt a coldness as he looked into those eyes.

Standing in front of him was Herbert Winters. A forty-year-old version of him.

“Remember me, Billy?” Winters asked, his voice the same wispy singsong that had tortured Shannon all those years earlier.

“Yeah, I remember you. You’re older. Why is that?”

“You got to ask yourself that.”

“I don’t have to ask myself a goddamn thing.”

“Sure you do. Come on, boy, give it a try. Look deep inside yourself. The answer’s there.”

Shannon turned away, but Winters moved with him as if they were fastened together at the hips, hovering in front of him, his slit mouth grinning in an amused fashion.

“Just go away,” Shannon pleaded. “I don’t want you here.”

“Sorry, Billy Boy. It don’t work that way. You know why, don’t you?”

Shannon had his eyes squeezed shut. He tried running, but he could feel Winters’s warm, rancid breath against his face. There was no use running so he stopped. And besides, he felt too weak to run. His legs had quickly become rubbery and lifeless. When he opened his eyes Winters was still hovering in front of him, still grinning like only he knew the big joke.

“Too stupid to see the obvious, huh?” Winters asked, his grin shrinking to a thin, impish smile. “Let me spell it out to you. The reason I’ve aged twenty years since last we met is because we met twenty years ago.

“Still don’t see it?” he asked, nodding at Shannon’s blank stare. “Let me explain it to you. I’ll talk slowly so you can follow. I’m inside you, dummy. I’m part of you. And I’m not too happy about it. But what the hell can you do, right?”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Shannon started. “What do you mean you’re part of-”

“Look,” Winters said, cutting Shannon off, his smile taking on a malicious glint. “Think back twenty years ago, the day you murdered me. Let’s try and remember what really happened, not the bullshit story you made up afterwards. Let’s try and be honest with ourselves for a change.

“Your daddy knew what really happened,” Winters continued, winking in a good-old-boy sort of way. “He knew just by looking at you. And you know, too. Come on, admit it, boy. Who really did kill your poor mother?”

“You did,” Shannon said, dumbly. “She was dead when I got home. You were doing things to her. You were-”

“We were enjoying ourselves. That’s all.” Winters thin smile disappeared, leaving his mouth a tiny, dull slit. “Maybe it was a bit kinky making out on top of the kitchen table, but it was nothing serious. We even still had all our clothes on. And I guess we lost track of the time, huh? Didn’t count on you sneaking up on us. Shit, were you quiet. A little mouse, weren’t you?

“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?” Winters asked, chuckling to himself. “You remember what happened next, don’t you? How, like the little pissant that you were, you snuck that butcher knife out of the drawer and then tippytoed over to your mother and plunged it into her mouth as she lay on that table minding her own business. And then you tried to use it on me.”

“T-that’s n-not true.”

“Of course it is. Explains why only your fingerprints were on the knife. And why there were no other bruises on your mom, except a few along her neck when we were making out earlier and maybe got a little too rough. But nothing she didn’t enjoy. I really had her purring, boy. Had her engine all revved up and ready to go until you killed the ignition.

“I had to break your fingers to get the knife out of your hand,” Winters continued. “It looked like you were out cold. I went over to check on your mom, see if I could save her. But I couldn’t. She was as dead as dead can be. Her eyes bulging, almost popping out of their sockets like pale blue marbles. But you weren’t out cold, were you, boy?”

Winters waited and then went on, smiling sadly. “You did a number on me, boy. Had the knife in and out of me a half dozen times before I realized what was happening. And then it was too late. Remember what you did to me afterwards-to my head? You had it hanging off my body by a thread. That was unnecessary, boy. Truly unnecessary.”