Марк Лэйдлоу - 400 Boys and 50 More

Paula had gone rigid in her chair, watching the old man speak. Suddenly that hanging black gaze turned to her.

“You,” he said. “Do you know how an organism survives?”

“Pardon me?” she said weakly.

“It survives because its components work together, each one specialized towards its specific contribution to the organism. Specialization, yes. Louise was specialized; she did not survive.”

Daniel sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Dad, it wasn’t specialization. It was drugs. She made some mistakes.”

“And your brother?”

“What about him? He’s doing fine. He has his own business now, he seems to be happy.”

“But he deserted us! He threatened the existence of us all. Your sister deteriorated. Your mother crumbled. And then you…”

“What about me?”

The old man shrugged. “You returned. We still have a chance.”

Paula, through all this, said nothing. But she was thinking: My God. My God.

“I’m going to be going home, Dad. I’m not staying very long.”

The old man snapped, “What?”

“I told you that in my letter. I’m only staying for a day or two.”

“But you can’t go back! You—you can’t! Otherwise I have no chance—not alone. Nor you either, Daniel.”

“Look, Dad—”

“Together we can survive, perhaps recover. And… and maybe your brother will return.”

“He’s raising a family.”

“Ah, see?” He raised one pallid finger. “He has learned!”

“Maybe we’d better not stay at all,” said Daniel, rising. His features had gone hard, faced with all this. Easier to run than worry about it.

“No!” This was a bleat, a plea, escaping from the old man as if he had been punctured. His expression, too, was wounded. “Daniel, you can’t…”

Paula rose and touched Daniel gently on the arm until he turned to her. Thank God he hadn’t pulled away from her touch.

“Daniel,” she said, “it’s really getting late. I don’t think you should do any more driving tonight.”

Daniel searched her expression, saw only concern. He nodded.

“We’ll stay the night then, Dad. But we’re leaving in the morning.”

The old man started forward, then sank back in apparent despair. His breath was loud and labored, wheezing; his hands crouched upon his knees, waiting for Daniel to stray near.

“You can’t leave me, Daniel. I need you to survive, I need you!” His eyes glimmered, turning to Paula. “ You know, don’t you? That’s why you’re taking him from me… to strengthen yourself. Well you’ll never have him. He’s mine. Only mine.”

The words slid into Paula like a blade of ice, malevolent in their cold precision. She felt weak.

“I—” she began. “Honestly, it’s nothing like that. I don’t want Daniel that way.”

The worm-white head rotated. “Then you are a fool.”

“Paula,” Daniel repeated, “maybe we’d better leave right I now.”

“Haven’t you heard what I’ve said? You mustn’t leave!” Again, pain had replaced malicious insanity on the old man’s pale features. Paula felt sorry for him.

“Daniel,” she said, “just the night. It’s really too late to leave.”

Daniel looked once at the poised hands of his father. Then he sighed, tensely, and nodded. “But I don’t want to hear any more of this, Dad. One more word of it and we’re going for sure.”

He turned back to Paula. “Come on, I’ll show you to your room. Hopefully there’s something to eat around here.”

They started to leave, stepping towards another dark doorway.

“Daniel.” The voice was cold again, chilling. They stopped and looked back at the old man.

“You forget,” he said, eyes narrowing, face hardening. “I’m stronger than you. I always was. You cannot resist the organism.”

Paula felt Daniel’s muscles tighten beneath her hand.

“Good night, Dad,” he said. They walked out.

Much later, in the darkened hallway upstairs, Daniel apologized again.

“He’s gotten worse, Paula—worse than I had ever expected.” Daniel was nervous, his expression intensely bothered.

“It’s all right, Daniel, really. Things happen to people as they get old.”

Daniel pulled her closer to him. It was cold in the drafty darkness, only the feeble grey moonlight trickling in through the window at the end of the hall. But the embrace was not warming; Daniel seemed to be protecting himself with Paula.

“It’s as if he wants to swallow me—the way he keeps touching and grabbing. So… so greedy ! I wouldn’t have come back if I thought he’d be this way.”

“What did he used to be like?” Paula asked.

She looked up at Daniel, but he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were fixed on the door to his father’s room, where a narrow fringe of light spread into the hall from under the door. His gaze seemed clouded, distant; he was remembering something. Something unpleasant.

“What is It, Daniel?”

He shook his head, slightly disgusted. It was the look he always got when she asked him about his childhood. She could feel his heart pounding against her breasts.

“ Daniel , please, what’s wrong ?”

“I—I never told you. I never thought I’d tell anyone.” She began to urge him on, but he continued without prompting.

“When I was a kid, I came out here one night—I’d had a nightmare, I think. It was late. I thought I heard noises in my parents’s room; the light was coming out just like it is now. I knocked, but no one answered, so I opened the door—just a little, you know?—and started to go in.

“They were—they—just lying there, my mother and my father, wrapped around each other, and the light was so bright I wasn’t sure that—that it was my mother there—

“I thought it was my sister , Paula!”

Paula caught her breath, then instantly relaxed. Daniel had been young—he’d seen his parents having sex. Such experiences often led to traumas, delusions. She could imagine it lurking in his mind all these years, breaking free now. Daniel was trembling.

“I yelled,” he continued. “I remember yelling. But… they didn’t even move . They just lay there until I ran away.”

He paused. Then, “It wasn’t my sister, of course. It couldn’t have been, I can’t believe it. She and my mother had the same color of hair, and that was all I could see; the light was so bright, they were so close together… not moving. But I thought, for just a moment, that he…” Daniel looked towards the door and shuddered again.

“Daniel, do you want me to stay with you tonight?”

“What? Oh, no, that’s all right.” He forced a laugh. “Might be a little too hard on my dad. Maybe later, when he’s asleep, you can sneak over…”

She yawned uncontrollably. “Maybe. If I can stay awake.” They kissed and said goodnight. Daniel parted with obvious reluctance, then went through the door into his room, closing it softly behind him. Paula looked down the hall, where light still spilled from beneath his father’s door. Thank God she was on the other side of Daniel; he was between her and that old man. Daniel’s story was ridiculous, of course: a childhood hallucination, magnified by the years. Things like that… incest… just didn’t happen.

She slipped into her own room, and was somewhat dismayed to find that the lock didn’t work. It needed a key that was nowhere to be found. Just another inconvenience among many. She was surprised, actually, that this place even had electricity. The room itself was dusty and suffocating, but she supposed she could stand it for one night.

In a minute she was in bed, trying to warm herself, the small table lamp shut off. When the sounds of her settling in had faded, the darkness swarmed around her uncomfortably, creaking and breathing in the manner of such old houses. She tried to ignore it, suddenly glad that they had stayed the night. Another nap in the car and she would have gone mad. At least she had been able to shower here. The old man was bearable when she didn’t have to confront him directly.