Clive Barker - The Great and Secret Show

Instantly the thicket around threw itself into a frenzy. The branches lashed at themselves like flagellants, stripping bark and shredding foliage, their motion so violent she was sure they would uproot themselves and come for her.

"Momma!" she said, turning back towards the house.

"Where are you going?" Tommy-Ray said.

"That's not our father!" she said. "It's a trick! Look! It's a terrible trick!"

Tommy-Ray either knew and didn't care or was so deeply under the Jaff's influence he only saw what the Jaff wanted him to see.

"You're staying with me!" he said, grabbing hold of Jo-Beth's arm, "with us!"

She struggled to be free of him but his grip was too fierce. It was Momma who intervened, with a downward stroke of her fist which broke his hold. Before. Tommy-Ray could recapture her, Jo-Beth made a dash for the house. The storm of foliage followed her across the grass, as did Momma, whose hand she took as they raced for the door.

"Lock it! Lock it!" Momma said, as they got inside.

She did so. No sooner had she turned the key than Momma was calling her to follow.

"Where?" Jo-Beth said.

"My room. I know how to stop it. Hurry!"

The room smelt of Momma's perfume, and stale linen, but for once its familiarity offered comfort. Whether the room also offered safety was moot. Jo-Beth could hear the back door kicked open downstairs, then a ruckus that sounded as though the contents of the refrigerator was being pitched around the kitchen. Silence followed.

"Are you looking for the key?" Jo-Beth said, seeing Momma reaching beneath her pillows. "I think it's on the outside."

"Then get it!" Momma said. "And be quick!"

There was a creak on the other side of the door which made Jo-Beth think twice about opening it. But with the door unlocked they had no means of defense whatsoever. Momma talked of stopping the Jaff, but if it wasn't the key she was digging for it was her prayer-book, and prayers weren't going to stop anything. People died all the time with supplication on their lips. She had no choice but to fling the door open.

Her eyes went to the stairs. The Jaff was there, a bearded fetus, his vast eyes fixing her. His tiny mouth grinned. She reached for the key as he climbed. "We're here," he said.

The key wouldn't come out of the lock. She jiggled it, and it suddenly freed itself, slipping from both the lock and her fingers. The Jaff was within three steps of the top of the stairs. He didn't rush. She went down on her haunches to pick up the key, aware for the first time since entering the house that the percussion that had first alerted her to his presence had begun again. Its din confounded her thoughts. Why was she stooping? What was she looking for? The sight of the key reminded her. Snatching it up (the Jaff at the summit) she stood, retreated, slammed the door and locked it.

"He's here!" she said to Momma, glancing her way.

"Of course," said Momma. She'd found what she was looking for. It was not a prayer-book, it was a knife, an eight-inch kitchen knife which had gone missing some while ago.

"Momma?"

"I knew it would come. I'm ready."

"You can't fight him with that," she said. "He's not even human. Is he?"

Momma's eyes went to the door.

"Tell me, Momma."

"I don't know what he is," she said. "I've tried to think...all these years. Maybe the Devil. Maybe not." She looked back at Jo-Beth. "I've been afraid for so long," she said. "And now he's here and it all seems so simple."

"Then explain it," Jo-Beth said. "Because I don't understand. Who is he? What has he done to Tommy-Ray?"

"He told the truth," Momma said. "After a fashion. He is your father. Or rather one of them."

"How many do I need?"

"He made a whore of me. He drove me half mad with desires I didn't want. The man who slept with me is your father; but this—" she pointed the knife in the direction of the door, from the far side of which came the sound of tapping "—this is what really made you."

"I hear you," the Jaff murmured. "Loud and clear."

"Keep away," Momma said, moving towards the door. Jo-Beth tried to shoo her back but she ignored the instruction. And with reason. It wasn't the door she wanted to stand beside but her daughter. She seized Jo-Beth's arm and dragged her close, putting the knife to her throat.

"I'll kill her," she said to the thing on the landing. "So help me as there's a God in Heaven I mean it. Try and come in here and your daughter's dead." Her grip on Jo-Beth was as strong as Tommy-Ray's. Minutes ago he'd called her a lunatic. Either her present performance was a bluff of Oscar-winning skill or else he'd been right. Either way, Jo-Beth was forfeit.

The Jaff was tapping on the door again.

"Daughter?" he said.

"Answer him," Momma told her.

"Daughter?"

"...Yes..."

"Do you fear for your life? Honestly now. Tell me honestly. Because I love you and I want no harm to come to you "

"She fears," Momma said.

"Let her answer," the Jaff said.

Jo-Beth had no hesitation in replying. "Yes," she said. "Yes. She's got a knife and—"

"You would be a fool," the Jaff said to Momma, "to kill the only thing that made your life worth living. But you might, mightn't you?"

"I won't let you have her," Momma said.

There was a silence from the other side of the door. Then the Jaff said:

"Fine by me..." He laughed softly. "There's always tomorrow."

He rattled the door one last time, as though to be certain that he was indeed locked out. Then the laughter and the rattling ceased, to be replaced by a low, guttural sound that might have been the groan of something being born into pain, knowing with its first breath there was no escape from its condition. The distress in the sound was at least as chilling as the seductions and threats that had gone before. Then it began to fade.

"It's leaving," Jo-Beth said. Momma still held the blade at her neck. "It's leaving, Momma. Let me go."

The fifth stair from the bottom of the flight creaked twice, confirming Jo-Beth's belief that their tormentors were indeed exiting the house. But it was another thirty seconds before Momma relaxed her hold on Jo-Beth's arm, and another minute still before she let her daughter go entirely.

"It's gone from the house," she said. "But stay here a while."

"What about Tommy?" Jo-Beth said. "We have to go and find him."

Momma shook her head. "I was bound to lose him," she said. "No use now."

"We've got to try," Jo-Beth said.

She opened the door. Across the landing, leaning against the banister, was what could only be Tommy-Ray's handiwork. When they were children he'd made dolls for Jo-Beth by the dozen, makeshift toys that nevertheless bore the imprint of his disposition. Always, they had smiles. Now he had created a new doll; a father for the family, made from food. A head of hamburger, with thumb-press eyes; legs and arms of vegetables; a torso of a milk carton, the contents of which spilled out between its legs, pooling around the chili pepper and garlic bulbs placed there. Jo-Beth stared at its crudity: the meat-face stared back at her. No smile this time. No mouth even. Just two holes in the hamburger. At its groin the milk of manhood spread, and stained the carpet. Momma was right. They'd lost Tommy-Ray.

"You knew that bastard was coming back," she said.

"I guessed it would come, given time. Not for me. It didn't come for me. I was just a convenient womb, like all of us—"

"The League of Virgins," Jo-Beth said.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Oh, Momma...people have been talking since I was a kid..."

"I was so ashamed," Momma said. She put her hand to her face; the other, still holding the knife, hung at her side. "So very ashamed. I wanted to kill myself. But the Pastor kept me from it. Said I had to live. For the Lord. And for you and Tommy-Ray."