David Nickle - Monstrous Affections

“Please, Grandmother,” he said, “I need to fly.”

At that, Grandmother let loose another coughing laugh. “Evan told me this would be difficult,” she said. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll take you to your Grandfather. He’s in the garden.”

“The garden?”

“You remember, dear — from the movie.”

At once, it came together for Michael. He looked around the landscape — now nothing but a flattened plain, mottled with stone and debris, but fundamentally equalized by the force of the Earth. In his memory, he drew up the past — the house, with its wide glass doors, and the trees and the garden, the chaos of greenery there. The memory of it floated over the ruined ground like ghost towers.

Grandmother walked through them easily — she wasn’t even using a cane — and Michael followed. After a time, the ground beneath his feet altered, and Michael realized he was no longer walking on gravel. The ground was brick now, smashed brick and masonry, mixed with the occasional splintered piece of wood.

“This place,” said Grandmother, “was an unfortunate side effect. But it was early, and we didn’t quite understand the forces involved. And we did have to act quickly — so I suppose we really can’t blame ourselves.”

“Why did you have to act quickly?” Michael thought he might know the answer already — as he looked around, as far as he could see there was nothing standing above ankle height. There was nowhere for Grandfather to hide. Not above ground.

Grandmother stopped then, and turned around — turning, Michael saw, as though she were standing on a Lazy Susan. Or floating above the ground, just an inch. She fished into her purse, and pulled out a coil of what looked like rope. She tossed it in the air, and it unravelled slowly, drifting to him as though floating in water. Michael reached out and caught it easily. As he held it, he saw it wasn’t rope at all — it was a length of plastic hose, ribbed with wire.

“If we hadn’t done something soon,” said Grandmother, “then your Grandfather would have driven us all into the Earth, with his foolish indulgence.”

“Where is Grandfather?” said Michael. “I have to talk to him.”

Grandmother smiled in a way that was not very Grandmotherly at all.

“Look down,” said Grandmother.

Michael looked down — and immediately realized his mistake. Gravity seized him with two strong hands around his skull, and he fell hard to his knees. He dropped the hose and put his hands out to break his fall—

And they sank into the ground.

Michael yanked back with his shoulders, but his hands wouldn’t come out. It was as though they were set in cement. He tried to lift his knees, but they were embedded in the ground as well.

“Help me.” The words came out as a whisper, but Grandmother heard them.

“Of course, dear,” she said, and then he saw her feet beside him. She bent down and lifted an end of the tube she’d tossed him. “I’m sorry — I should have explained. It goes in your mouth — that’s very important.” Michael felt a hand on the back of his head, and Grandmother’s other hand set the tube firmly between his teeth. “Clamp down,” she instructed.

Michael sank further — his groin was pressed against the ground, and as far as he could tell his thighs were almost completely submerged. In the distance, he heard the sound of a car engine.

Grandmother let go of the hose and his head, and moved further back. Her cold, strong hands pushed down on his behind. There was a crunching sound, as his pelvis slid through stone and wood and dirt. “You’ll thank me for this later,” she said. “It’s better to go down feet first.”

The car engine grew louder. Out of the corner of his eye, Michael could see the glimmer of headlights. Finally, they grew very bright, illuminating the ground beneath him like a moonscape, and the engine stopped.

Michael heard a strangled moan then — dimly, he realized it was his own, carried through the tube that began in his mouth and ended a few feet away.

There was another tube, he saw — sticking out of the ground, just a few feet in front of him. If he listened, he was sure he could hear the faint noise of breathing coming from it.

The car doors opened and closed, and Michael heard voices:

“Mother,” said one — sounding very much like Uncle Evan. “Are we too late?”

“You are late,” said Grandmother, grunting as she continued to work at Michael’s back, “but I am managing.”

“Well now you can take a rest,” said a woman — Aunt Nancy? “We can take over from here.”

“Very well.” Grandmother let go of Michael, and he tried to struggle. But he was at an odd angle — bent forward about forty-five degrees. He could thrash his shoulders, wave his head around, but that was as much as he could hope for.

Soon, he felt more hands on him. Together, they pushed down harder than Grandmother could — so very soon he was nearly upright, waist-deep in the ground. His breath whistled through the tubing, cut by sobs.

He could see the other car now. It was a big American sedan, a Lincoln maybe, and as he watched the back door opened, and a third person got out.

It was Suzanne.

He tried to spit out the tube, so he could speak with her, plead with her — but as quick as he did, Uncle Evan pushed the tube back in.

Suzanne’s feet crunched on the debris as she walked over to him. He couldn’t see her face well — as she approached, she became not much more than a slender silhouette in the Lincoln’s headlights.

“Do I have to do this?” Her voice was quavering as she bent to her knees, put her hands on Michael’s shoulders. Michael thought he could see the glint of moisture on her cheeks — and was absurdly touched by it.

“It is the only way, dear,” said Grandmother. “Don’t worry — he’ll be fine. The Earth looks after its own.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I thought we could work it out.”

Suzanne pushed down on Michael’s shoulders, and he felt himself sinking further — the Earth tickled his collarbone, enveloped his throat and touched his chin. Suzanne had moved her hands to the crown of his skull, and now she pushed down on that. Desperate, Michael spat out the tube.

“Suzanne! Wait! Maybe we can work it out!” he gasped, as the ground came over the cleft in his chin, pressed against his lower lip. “Help me up!”

Suzanne took her hands from his head at that.

“No,” she said — although her voice was uncertain. She reached down, picked up the tube, and jammed it into his mouth. “Your Grandmother explained what happens when I help you up.” And then her tone changed, and it sounded very certain indeed. “I can’t let you use me like that.”

Then she pushed once more, and Michael was into the ground past his nose. He sucked cold, stale air through the tube. All he could see now was Suzanne’s boots, her blue-jeaned knees, and the inch or so of space between them and the flattened ground.

“That’s enough, dear,” said Grandmother, her voice sounding far away. “The Earth can do the rest.”

Suzanne’s hands lifted from Michael’s head, and he watched as her feet, her knees lifted further from the ground. He heard laughter from above — liberated, unbound from the Earth — and then that same Earth came up to fill his ears. The only sound was the beating of his heart.

The beating of his own heart, and faintly, the beating of one other.

“Grandfather,” he said, but the words were mangled through his tube and must have sounded like a bleat to anyone who lingered above. His tears made little pools on the ground in front of him. Although it was cold and hard that night, tightly packed in its own formidable grip, the Earth swallowed them greedily.