Tim Curran - Resurrection

Oh, Christ, now that was tough. Margaret never disagreed with Russel. She looked from Darin to her son. “Well, I, um…that is…”

But Mitch saved her. “All right,” he said, “I want you to listen to what I have to say. You may not like it, but you’re gonna listen. You’re gonna hear what I have to say.”

They were all looking at him, so he started talking. He told them about the things at Sadler Brother’s and the living severed arm, the burned woman in the culvert pipe and what happened at Lisa Bell’s house. And finished it all off with what came up out of the flooded cellar of Bonnie’s One-Stop over in Elmwood Hills. He left out the part about the dead man exploding when they’d mowed him down in Tommy’s truck. Thing was, about half way through his tale that sounded like something he’d cribbed from a horror comic like The Vault of Horror, he started to run out of steam. It was the subject matter. By the time he’d finished he didn’t even sound like he believed it himself.

Of course, halfway through, Lou Darin began to roll his eyes and then shake his head. He took off his glasses, wiped them clean on a tissue, and then put them back on in time to roll his eyes yet again.

“What do you take me for?” he finally said when nobody laughed. Because he’d spent any number of years in the school system and he’d heard his share of whoppers told by kids and this had to be something along those lines. “No, really, Mitch: what in the hell do you take me for? Do you think I’m a complete idiot that will believe any ridiculous story shoved down my throat? Do I look stupid? What do you think I am?”

Miriam was grinning ear to ear, just eating it up.

Tommy said, “Go ahead, Mitch, tell him what you think he is.”

“I think maybe you should stay out of this,” Lou Darin warned him. “Because, you know, you wiseass, we’ve got enough trouble without every idiot in the city crawling out of the woodwork and flapping their mouth. So, as I said, I think maybe you should just stay out of this.”

Tommy had the smirk on his face that told Mitch he was looking for a fight. And would keep looking until he found one. “And I think maybe your mother should have kept her legs crossed.”

Lou Darin was a very slick and officious man. He was master and commander and he was not used to being talked to like that. Standing there in his yellow L.L. Bean Southwester with his three-piece Kuppenheimer’s pinstripe beneath and his shiny black rubbers, you could see he was a man who demanded respect. “Who the hell do you think you are talking to me like that? Do you know who I am, you inbred little shit?”

“Easy now,” Tommy said. “You make ‘inbreeding’ sound like a bad thing.”

“It’s all just like the pamphlet said,” Russel piped up. “These are the End Times and all the horrors of hell have been unleashed.”

Miriam started laughing. “Well, isn’t this a fine kettle of fish, Mr. Mitch Barron! See what you and your kind have brought about? Do you see the evils you have set lose? You and your effing unions and your no prayer in school? Do you see what you’ve set into motion?”

Margaret had tears in her eyes. She looked like she wanted to swoon.

Mitch just stood there, getting pissed and feeling frustrated. If this really is the end of the world, he thought, then God must be laughing his ass off, because he left it in real good hands. He looked over at Tommy and Tommy just shrugged.

“I’m telling you, each and everyone of you, what I saw out there today,” Mitch tried again in a very calm voice, speaking very slowly. “I’m not making this shit up. I wish to God above that I was, but I am not. I have nothing to gain by lying here.”

“Except to stir a general panic,” Lou Darin pointed out. “And I believe there are laws against that. Now listen to me, all of you. This has gone far enough. Halloween is some weeks away and I’m really not in the mood for anymore ghost stories.” Then he turned to Mitch. “You know, I would have thought better of you, Mitch. A lot better. I would have thought you would have known better than to play silly, childish games like this. No, no, don’t waste your time arguing. I can see it in your eyes and, believe me, I couldn’t possibly swallow that nonsense. I don’t believe in ghosts or the boogeyman or prophecy for that matter. I know there are no such things. The sun rises and it sets. The sky is blue and the world keeps turning.”

“And when you wipe your ass,” Tommy said, “I bet it smells like a cup of sunshine.”

Mitch burst out laughing, couldn’t help himself.

“That’s enough!” Lou Darin said. “That’s enough from all of you, do you hear me? I won’t stand here and be insulted! I won’t stand here and have you tell me that this is the end of the world! Because if that’s the flavor of the day, then it flat out stinks!”

Mitch thought for a moment there he was going to drop that uppity sonofabitch. But he didn’t. There were bigger fish to fry here than Lou Darin. So he swallowed down his anger and sighed. “All right, Mr. Darin. You say I’m a liar? Okay, fine. Now, here’s what we’re going to do. You and I are going to jump in my friend’s truck here and take a little drive over to River Town. And I’m going to show you those things first hand.”

“The hell we are,” Darin said.

“Come again? I think maybe you misunderstood me, you greasy little sonofabitch. I wasn’t asking you, I was telling you.”

“You better stay away from me!”

Tommy grabbed Darin by the arm. “He’s not kidding, friend. I saw those things: they’re real.”

Darin pulled himself free. “You idiots! You goddamned idiots! Who in the name of Christ do you think you small-minded, shitkicking yahoos are dealing with here? Do you think I fell out of a tree yesterday?” His voice had taken on a high, whining timbre that you usually heard in brats who’d been denied candy or adults that had slipped a cog upstairs. He backed away from anybody because he saw no allies in the group of misfits around him. “Don’t think I don’t know what this is all about! I know! I know! None of you have ever wanted me in this neighborhood and now you’ve seen your chance to play a little joke on me and now you’ve had your stupid little laugh at my expense! Well, ha, ha, joke’s on you! Because I won’t be a party to this madness and I will not be your rubber stamp! Not now and not ever!”

He started backing towards the door with a wild look in his eye like he thought maybe they were all going to jump him and beat him up. But nobody made a move. They just watched him back to the door and then go running right out of it, talking to himself the entire time.

“Well, scratch that asshole,” Tommy said. “He’ll be dead by dawn.”

After that, things got a little uncomfortable. Nobody seemed to know what to say and probably because there really wasn’t anything they could say.

Miriam looked happy about it all. For the first time in his life, Mitch actually thought she was looking happy.

Margaret finally said, “Mitch? Mitch, is it really true? Is all that really true?”

He nodded solemnly. “Yes, I’m afraid it is.”

Russel needed no more prompting. He took his mother by the arm and hurried her out the door and presumably to their house down the way where Mitch fervently hoped he would lock the door and not open it again.

“Miriam,” he said, “your door is shot up. You can’t stay here. You can’t-”

“You don’t worry about what I can or can’t do, Mr. Mitch Barron! I’ll take care of myself and I don’t need any effing help from the likes of you! So get off my property! Get off my property and stay off! Because next time, I swear to God, I will not miss!”