Daryl Gregory - The Devil's Alphabet

HIS FATHER ROLLED out in a wheelchair the size of a loveseat. The boy pushing him was Clete’s sidekick, Travis. Everett trailed behind them with that bouncer-blank look on his face.

Travis steered Harlan toward the atrium windows, where Pax sat in the middle of an upholstered guest chair, also chub-sized. His father was slumped in the wheelchair, head back and eyes closed. He looked deflated, a man swimming in a giant’s skin and clothes. Pax leaned forward, and Everett said, “Just keep your seat.”

“I was just-never mind,” Pax said. Rhonda had explained the rules: no touching, no leaving the room, and do whatever Everett says. “Otherwise,” she’d told him, “just be yourself.”

“Is he awake?” Pax asked.

Everett touched Harlan’s shoulder. “Pastor Martin,” he said. “Your son’s here.”

His father didn’t move. Everett said, “Playing possum.” He gently shook the man’s shoulder. “Come on now,” he said. “You’ve got company.”

Harlan opened his eyes a fraction. “Get your hands off me,” he said in a cracked voice.

“Ah,” Everett said. “Grumpy.” He nodded to Travis and they walked to a desk and chairs about ten feet away, where Barron, the security guard, had spread out a newspaper.

Harlan turned his gaze to the windows, paying no attention to Paxton. The bright sunlight turned his father’s skin to rice paper. His arms were stained with liver spots. He seemed decades older than he had two weeks ago.

“It’s me,” Pax said. “Your son.”

His father didn’t move.

Pax leaned back in his giant chair, scratched the side of his neck. The ache burned in him. Inside the Home, and this close to his father, Pax had expected to be engulfed by the scent of the vintage, and he hadn’t been sure how he was going to stand it. But there was only a trace of it, and even that was almost masked by the smell of Pine-Sol.

“So,” Pax said. He tried to make his voice sound relaxed. “How are they treating you?”

“Quit talking to me that way,” his father said.

Pax glanced at the chub men across the room. They were pretending to study their sections of the paper. To his father, Pax said, “What way?”

“I’m not senile.”

But you’re not exactly sane, Pax thought. “Dad, I have to explain-”

“I asked you one thing, Paxton.” Harlan turned his head to look at him, his eyes in that collapsed face bright and hard. “One thing.”

“You didn’t exactly make it easy on me,” Pax said. He told him about the night at the church: the impromptu baptism, the way they had to drag both of them from the water. “You don’t remember any of this?”

“You got what you wanted,” his father said. “So why are you here?”

“This is not what I wanted!” Pax said. Everett looked over at them, and Pax lowered his voice. “I wanted you out of here. I wanted to take you home. I just… can’t.”

His father made a noise of disgust and looked away. Outside the window, a plastic fawn nestled in the grass beside an antique iron water pump. Someone had planted a row of flowers, but at the moment they were headless stalks.

Pax stared at his hands, then at his father.

Harlan reached up, scratched at a cheek, and white flakes of skin fluttered in the sunlight. Dry, dry, dry. Nothing there for him. He was dying of thirst and his father had become a desert.

After several minutes of silence, Pax got up and walked to the security desk. “This isn’t working,” Pax said quietly.

Everett looked up at him. “You saying you’re backing out of the deal?”

“No, I’m not backing out. It’s just not working right now.” He looked back at his father, still staring out the window. “Look,” he said to Everett. “Give me some now, just half, and tomorrow-”

“One more word,” Everett said quietly. “Go ahead. Say one more word.”

Barron and Travis froze, their eyes on Everett. Paxton closed his mouth.

“Now then,” Everett said reasonably. “If you’re done for today, that’s fine. We’ll take you back now. But you don’t get paid unless he produces.”

Pax turned away from the desk. He went back to the big chair opposite his father and sat, leaning over his knees.

They didn’t speak. Pax studied his clasped hands, trying to get them to stop trembling. Jesus, he was a fucking wreck.

“You’ve got bruises,” his father said.

Pax didn’t reply.

“Are they making you do this?”

“No,” Pax said. “They’re not making me do anything.”

His father nodded. Several minutes passed.

“So,” Pax said. “How ’bout them Cubs?”

His father didn’t answer. They spent the next two hours in silence.

The vintage refused to return.

Each night Pax decided that he wouldn’t go forward with the deal. His craving seemed as strong as ever, but it wasn’t getting worse. He could handle it. He’d go back to Chicago, get on with his life.

Yet each morning at 8:45 he was waiting in front of the house for Everett to pick him up.

The visits lasted until noon. Then Travis would wheel his father off to lunch, and either Everett or Barron would give him a ride back to the house.

Because his father declined to talk, and because Rhonda thought TV would interfere with the process, Pax had to find some way to get through the hours. Each morning before he arrived he and Everett would stop by the Gas-n-Go, say hello to Mr. DuChamp, and pick up three papers: the Knoxville News-Sentinel, USA Today , and the Maryville Times . In the atrium Pax and his father would thumb through them, and usually Everett and Barron would join them. Travis sat well away from Pax and surreptitiously played games on his handheld.

One morning in the second week of visits, Pax handed his father the Sentinel and his father said, “How’s Mr. DuChamp’s hair?”

Pax looked up. “What? Oh. Fine.” He smiled. “Still looks as good as the day he bought it.” Twelve years after the Changes, Mr. DuChamp still wore a coal black toupee, never acknowledging that he’d become a beta.

His father grunted. He was silent the rest of the morning. But the next day his father dropped the section of paper he was reading and Pax automatically stooped to pick it up. His father looked down at him, a half smile on his face, but he seemed to be seeing someone else.

“Dad?” Pax asked. Then he smelled it. The vintage.

He glanced toward the desk. Everett was on an errand with Aunt Rhonda, and Barron was out of the room. Travis was engrossed in his handheld.

Pax touched his father’s hand. The skin seemed more moist than it had been. Quietly he said, “Dad, are you okay?”

“You said you wanted red, right?” his father said. “Fire-engine red.” He didn’t seem to be talking to Pax.

Travis still hadn’t noticed the change. Pax returned to his seat but his eyes were on his father’s face, his neck. He could see the skin of his cheek begin to swell, fast as a boxer’s after a vicious punch.

“It’s me, Paxton,” he said.

“You have to promise me to be careful,” his father said. “Don’t ride it on the road. And if your mother ever catches you without your helmet on, it’s going right back in the garage.”

“I promise,” Pax said. His parents had given him the Yamaha ATV when he was thirteen, seven months before the Changes. It was the best Christmas of his life.

The first blister formed just below his father’s right eye. Pax leaned forward, reached up to his father’s face.

Someone slapped his hand away. Pax lunged forward and Everett shoved him back in his chair. Pax hadn’t heard him come back in the room. “Stay put,” Everett said. “Travis, go get an extraction pack.”