1503933547 by Paul Pen

Author:Paul Pen
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781503933545
Published: 2016-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

23

The woman didn’t resist when her son pushed her aside. She just closed her eyes. Something soft brushed past her ankles. The hiss from that contact turned her stomach. The boy went into the living room, taking with him the smell of damp earth with which the storm imbued the air.

Her eyes still shut, the woman felt for the edge of the door that the wind had torn from her hands. She closed it. A sudden hot flush made the moisture on her face evaporate. The raincoat’s neck choked her. She unzipped it with a trembling hand. She could smell salt residue and a child’s sweat.

“Help me,” the boy said. He drew out the vowels and got stuck on some consonants. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She’s stopped talking.”

The man kept his mouth clamped shut, his throat tight.

Grandma felt for the chain of her rosary before fleeing upstairs. She went to yell Grandpa’s name, but just babbled a few meaningless words. She tripped on the last step before crashing through her bedroom door. She let herself fall onto the bed. Her choking sobs and her body’s uncontrollable shaking woke Grandpa, whose afternoon nap had prevailed over the storm, the yelling, and the doorbell. Unable to decipher a coherent sentence among his wife’s stammering, Grandpa got up. He found his glasses on the bedside table and slotted the arms among the last two clumps of gray hair he still had, the ones that grew over his ears until they ended a little higher than the temples. A crease from his pillow was engraved on his face.

Holding each other, the grandparents went out onto the landing. The next door along opened as well.

“Has the kid shown up?” their granddaughter asked, still in her bathrobe.

Her father yelled from downstairs, “Stay in your room!”

The daughter closed her door with contempt. Her stomach burned with rage every time they spoke to her like that. She hoped her brother had gotten himself in serious trouble.

Grandpa looked at his wife in search of an explanation. She seemed to be staring into nothing. He pushed her so she’d let go of the doorframe. Then he guided her to the top of the stairs leading down to the living room. They heard their grandson speak.

“Mom, open your eyes,” he said in guttural gulps. “You have to help me, she’s stopped talking.”

The woman screamed in the living room.

The boy’s words made Grandma cry.

A sudden tension attacked Grandpa’s belly.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” he growled.

He set off down the stairs, pulling his wife. When he reached the last step, he stopped there and stood, trying to understand the scene he found in front of him. He pressed Grandma’s face against his chest to shield her from the image.

The first thing he saw was the lock of blond hair emerging from inside the boy’s fist. The son was trying to get his mother’s attention by waving the clump of hair. A moist, fleshy sound accompanied each movement.

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