Gary A. Braunbeck - Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

Just a deer, she forced herself to think. It’s just the blood from Dad’s deer.

Her eyes followed the path of the arterial spray on the wall to the left of the blood, as well as the one directly behind it. She saw clumped bits of viscera and small chunks of shattered bone.

“Look at it,” said Alan, pushing her toward the pond. “See how it glimmers? Isn’t it beautiful?”

Deer blood, remember. Has to be deer blood.

Even though she knew that wasn’t the case, Marian called on her training as an actress to make herself believe it; as long as she could do that, she might get out of her in one living piece. “This is where you killed Joseph?” “Yes,” whispered Alan, staring into his reflection as he knelt by the edge of the pond. “Joseph Comstock?” Marian asked once again. “Yes.” “Then where’s his body, Alan?” “It’s here.” “Joseph Comstock’s body is here?” “Yes. Our great-great-great-great-grandfather.” A layer of ice formed in the pit of Marian’s stomach. “What?”

Alan looked at her. “Joseph Comstock was our ancestor, only he used to call himself Josiah. Came over here in the early 1800s and helped settled Cedar Hill. During the cholera epidemic he came down with a fever that drove him mad, picked up a scythe, and murdered his entire family. They hanged him for that, but when they went to cut down his body, it wasn’t there. He couldn’t be allowed to die, you see, because if he had, the bloodline which eventually led to you and me being born...it wouldn’t have survived. We never would have been. So he’s been hanging around, you see, in the cemetery, and can only move around during the month of October because it’s the month for ghosts, you see?” He stared back into the pond.

Marian shook her head, but only slightly. I did not fuck the ghost of my great-great-great-great-grandfather. I. Did. Not.

“The bloodline has to be kept strong,” Alan continued, “so it was up to us—you and me—to accept him.”

Marian looked around for something heavy—but not too heavy. Something just weighty enough with which to knock him unconscious; then she could sneak back up the stairs and get out through the back door. She saw a pile of old pipes in one corner and started edging her way toward them. “So beautiful,” Alan repeated. “Come look.” Marian passed close enough to her brother to look over Alan’s shoulders and see his reflection in the blood—

—only his was not alone; on either side of him were the faces of Mom and Dad, with Grandma and Grampa behind them, as well as countless others whose faces she did not recognize but knew they were Quinlan ancestors, be it from the shape of the jaw or the set of the eyes or the fullness of the lips, they were the rest of the family bloodline, going all the way back to—

—Josiah Comstock, whom she had known as Joseph, who stood at the very back in the puddle of faces, slightly higher than the rest, the original patriarch smiling down at his lineage. Marian, dizzy, reached out and placed one hand on her brother’s shoulder to steady her balance. “I knew you’d come around, Sis,” Alan said. “Do you want to see the body?” Marian said nothing. Alan straightened himself, still kneeling, and removed his baseball cap.

The back of his head was clump of raw, seeping meat speckled with strands of bloodied hair, bone slivers, and brain matter, covered with maggots. Both the skull and the brain had been split in half and pried apart, leaving a jagged, black horizontal gap where blood trickled down and out, drawing a straight line of crimson down his neck that disappeared into the collar of his shirt.

Before she could pull away, Alan’s right hand snapped up and gripped her wrist, pulling her hand closer to the ruins of his skull.

“You have to touch them now, Sis, you have to know what I know—”

She kicked out at his back but it did not good; his grip was iron, and before Marian could pull in enough breath to shout or scream or laugh, Alan was shoving her fingertips deep into the bloodied chasm, and it was wet and crumbly and thick and cold, sucking her fingers in deeper as the pupa swarmed over her skin.

“Feel them now?”

“... ohgod ,” she chocked, on the brink of vomiting.

“Give in to it, Sis, it’s the only way.”

The basement spun, the blood mixing with the light and the stench. Marian went down on one knee, her chest pounding, and felt a small part of her mind start to shut down—

—and then heard herself speak:

“...my goddamn prom dress...Mom spent months working on it in secret because she wanted to surprise me with it, she lost sleep staying up nights after we’d gone to sleep, and when she finally gave it to me I threw... oh, fuck! ...I threw a fit because it was the wrong color, it didn’t match my shoes, and she felt so stupid because she’d never thought to ask me what color my shoes were, but I wasn’t about to wear any other shoes, so Dad had to dig into the savings to give me the money for a prom dress...”

Alan continued: “...and Mom felt like she’d failed you again.”

Marian felt one tear slip from her eye and slide down her cheek. “I never apologized for that. All these years, and I never apologized.”

“Know what she did with the dress?”

Marian shook her head and began to reach out with her left arm toward the stack of old pipes. “...no....”

“She cut it up and used the material to start her Story Quilt. She’s got your prom dress, my Cub Scout uniform, a bunch of stuff from her and Dad, our grandparents and great-grandparents, a bunch of stuff. I even made a new patch from the top of the pajamas Dad was wearing the night he died. Now the time’s come for you to complete it; one Story Patch, and it’s done.”

“Let go of me.” The strain of reaching was beginning to rip her shoulder apart, but she would not stop trying.

“Just one, tonight, at the bonfire, just one and...you’ll see.”

The rest happened quickly; she managed to grab onto one of the smaller pipes, swing it up, then down in a smooth arc, and connected solidly with the side of what was left of her brother’s head; he released his grip on her and tumbled forward. Her hand pulled from the grisly chasm with the sound of a plastic bag melting on a fire. She rose to her feet and staggered toward the stairs, made her up to the kitchen, and thought she saw Jack coming toward her from the corner of her eye; not bothering to check if he was indeed there or if she were imagining it, Marian pulled in a deep breath and ran out the back door, leaving behind her coat and car keys, sprinting through the yard, over the neighbors’ fence, and into the street, racing past dozens of goblins and witches and vampires and ghosts, all of them drawn toward the house of her childhood by the hypnotic figure of Jack Pumpkinhead.

Candy and shivers.

I want our family again.

Giggles and whispers.

Come to the shortcut tonight. We’re gonna build a bonfire and tell ghosts stories.

She stumbled through the night.

Make sure to bring your pumpkins and your magic seeds.

She rounded a corner, clutching at her bleeding wrist, and nearly collided with a group of tiny clowns. She mumbled some apology, then took off again, not noticing the small spatters of blood that fell behind her like a trail of breadcrumbs through a fairy-tale forest.

An unseen group of children chanted: “Who blows at my candle? Whose fiery grin and eyes/Behind me pass in the looking glass/And make my gooseflesh rise?”

She looked back over her shoulder only once, and saw many figures behind her but couldn’t tell if any of them were following her.

His head, you saw the back of his head, you felt it, it was real, it was real, it was REAL!