A quiet evening

         Paul called up to the second floor from the base of the stairs. “Kimmy, Shane, come down, dinner’s ready.” He waited for Shane to barrel down the stairs like the upper level was burning, He tapped his finger on the banister with growing impatience. "Kimmy, tell your brother to get his head out of that game and come on."

         After a few frustrating minutes, Kimmy appeared at the top of the stairs. Her face wore a worried expression. She stared down at him, her lips poised to say something. Like a person trying to find words, their brain can’t grasp. “What’s wrong, kiddo?” Her fingers trembled; he could see them shaking from the bottom of the stairs. Dinner lost its urgency. He launched himself up the steps and knelt in front of her. “What is it, Kimmy? Where’s your brother?”

         “Dad, she’s back. I saw her in the—” he launched his hand forward and cupped it over her mouth. “shhhhh,” he drug out the interjection giving a sympathetic tone. “Is your brother in his room?” she nodded slowly in agreement, his hand still over her mouth. A tear rolled down her cheek and rested on the edge of his hand. “Go downstairs, angel, tell mommy I said it’s quiet time, she’ll understand.” He released his grip on her and she descended the stairs. She paused halfway down to glance back at him.

         The hallway had an unsettling quality. A waiting room for some terrible event. On any other day, Shane would be either screaming at video games or blasting his music. Now, quietness. A sickening unease weighed in the pit of his stomach. “Shane! You okay, bud?” he yelled. “Close your eyes. I’m coming to you.” He raked his fingers across the back of his neck, scratching an itch that wasn’t there. A nervous habit from childhood.

         The short walk to Shane’s room stretched. Paul walked forward, feeling like he was on an escalator walking the wrong way. He found Shane’s door partially open. Inside, Shane sat on the edge of the bed with his face planted against his palms. “Come on, son, it’s time for dinner.”

         “I don’t want to, I’m sc—"

         “Shane!” Paul said with a raised voice. He walked to the bed and sat beside Shane. “You know how this works, son. Come downstairs and let’s have a normal family dinner.” Paul said the sentence with the slow deliberation of a parent making a serious point.

         They walked to the dining room with their heads low. Paul led, only looking up when necessary.

         Quietness constricted the family dining room, choking the normal chatter to an occasional scrape of a fork. “So, Kimmy,” Paul said. “Mom told me you aced your English lit test today.” The words came out shaky. He looked over at his wife, Shelbi, and raised the corner of his lips into a forced half smile.

         Kimmy began answering, “It was um —.”

         A hand emerged between Shane and her. It walked its fingers on the table in spiderlike arcs. Dirty, ragged fingernails tapped as they struck the polished surface. Loose folds of skin hung from the boney, sore infested, arm attached to it.

         “Kimmy — Shane, look at Mama,” Shelbi said. She slid her hand toward Paul’s and clutched it. The two terror-stricken teenagers glanced at her. Their breathing was fast and shallow. One of the fingers dipped in Kimmy’s glass and swirled its contents. Everyone turned to Shelbi, blocking out the glass and finger. “I have an idea —,” she paused and closed her eyes. “How about we all go for an ice cream after dinner?” Paul coughed into his hand to clear his throat. “That’s a great idea,” he said. His tone was low and dismissive. “Shane, pass me the mashed potatoes, please.”

         The hand flew from the glass, knocking it on its side. Iced water pooled and trailed toward the edge of the table.

          The thing’s torso leaned over the table beside Paul. The odor of old, musty cheese stabbed through his nostrils. Everyone’s eyeballs darted away, avoiding the hideous monstrosity crawling across the dinner table. Paul saw blurred details of the thing in his peripheral. A nude, grotesquely thin figure. Loose skin and long stringy hair that hung down on the table. It flailed its arm, sending the bowl of mashed potatoes hurling across the room. The bowl exploded against the wall, leaving a steaming mess of the food oozing toward the floor. Kimmy stared at Paul. Her eyes were puffy and glistening with accumulating tears. “Dad,” she said. Her words came out choppy, like a person in freezing temperatures. John held his hand out toward her. His eyes were wide open, making a silent command for Kimmy to control herself.





         Shelbi watched her family from her place at the table. The thing gravitated to the kids. It focused on them, drawn to their innocence. It wanted one of them to slip and acknowledge it. Shock and adrenaline mixed. She felt detached, a third person watching through someone else's eyes. Her children remained rooted in place, eyes downcast, while Shelbi watched helplessly. Her guts churned with a mixture of emotions. Fingers clenched her intestines and twisted them like a wet dishcloth. Bitter guilt. Not just because of Paul and her fucking around. Though she had no doubt what they did caused this. The actual guilt came from the most crucial decision she’s made this evening. The decision to implode and give into fear. She buried her head in the sand and urged Kimmy and Shane to follow suit. What kind of parent would do that? Who would tell their kids to sit like cows waiting for slaughter?

         “I can’t do this Paul, not again,” Shelbi said as she stood from her chair. “How many chances do we take before our kids pay the price? I’m walking to the kitchen to see if there’s any ice cream. If there isn’t, I think we should leave and get some.” Her blank expression underlined the duality in her words.

         “Let’s not rush into anything,” Paul said. We really don’t know what’s going on with the ice cream just yet.” The thing lumbered to Paul. Shelbi watched its face move close to him. A big pot-marked nose almost touching the flesh on his temple. Paul stared back at Shelbi, scratching the side of his neck. His eyebrows slumped toward each other in defeat. She felt Paul in her subconscious, begging her not to walk away.

         "Screw this," Shelbi said and went to the kitchen. The thing snarled a wet, gurgling growl, and followed her. Its bare feet splat on the hardwood floor as it lurched toward the kitchen after Shelbi.

         “Dad!” Shane quietly snapped.

         He glanced at Shelbi, then back to Paul. He understood the message in his son’s gesture. Help her! That’s right, just sit here like you always do, he thought. An unrelenting reality struck him like a boulder falling from an airplane. He was acting like a coward. A spineless jellyfish glued to his chair. The brave dad who is too damned afraid to take charge. He mouthed a phrase to his children. A simple three-letter sentence the kids understood. Not just for the words, but also why he was saying them. He mouthed “I love you” and left the table.

         He stood in the entryway between the dining and living rooms. Shelbi had disappeared into the kitchen. The thing trudged behind her, closing in on her. Trapping her.

          Paul yelled to it, “Hey! look at me!” The thing snapped its body around with the ease of a child's top spinning. Almost too fast to see. He looked directly at it for the first time. It appeared more like a troll than a human. Folds of grey skin ridden with warts and sores sagged on a hunched, lanky figure. If it had stood straight up, the top of its misshapen head would hit the ceiling. But its eyes were magnificent. An endless void of tenderness, big, round, and beautiful. He wanted to drift away in them like a sailor lost at sea. Deep green pupils glowed with a radiant ambiance. Everything around him melted away. He felt himself drifting into the warmth of the creature’s gaze.

         Now he understood —.

         He craved its love.

         Paul’s body begged for its embrace, welcomed it with happy excitement.





          Paul’s voice rang through the house. Shelbi ran from the kitchen to him. What she found stopped her in horror. It turned away from her and moved towards Paul. His body stood slumped, like a zombie. He stared at the thing in a slack-jawed trance. Shelbi placed a vertical finger over her lips toward the kids, “shhhhhh.” She waved her hand for them to come to her.

         They slid from their chairs and crept across the dining room. Their faces were pale and void of any discernable emotions. Like soldiers who just saw their first bloody conflict. Shelbi watched them, fighting her motherly instinct to go to them. She'd be the barrier for them if it changed its mind about Paul. Even if it meant the worst, her children would live. “Kitchen,” she whispered. “Go to the window in the kitchen and climb out.”

         “Mom, no,” Shane protested, trying to control his voice.

         “It’s okay, I’ll be right behind you.”

         “Mom –’

         “Go!”

         The thing leaped onto Paul knocking him off his feet. It peeled back its thin lips, exposing a row of long yellowish construction nail-like teeth. Paul lay limp, making no attempts to defend himself. His eyes stayed affixed on it. He watched it with the same love-struck awe a young boy gives a teacher he’s in love with. The thing trusted its face forward, plunging teeth into the side of Paul’s neck. Its head reeled with the explosive violence of a feral dog. Paul’s body convulsed from skin and muscle being torn away in chucks. Blood splatted on the walls and pooled under his body.

         Kimmy screamed and ran toward him, “Daddy!” Shelbi stepped in the way, stopping her from advancing further.

         “Shane, get her out of here! Now!” Shane snapped forward, grabbed Kimmy around her waist, and pulled her toward the kitchen. She struggled against him, trying to pull his hands apart.

         “Stop Shane! We need to check on him.”



         Paul spoke from behind Shelbi, “Shell, everything is okay now, look at me.” She turned to his voice. The thing kneeled over Paul. Gore dripped from the corners of its mouth. It was looking at her. Its big green eyes locked onto hers.





         Shane watched Shelbi turn back toward his dad. He couldn’t see what had gotten her attention. She blocked the view where his dad was laying. Her demeanor changed. Any trace of her felt gone. “Mom let’s go,” he said. Shane's plea was answered with a stabbing silence. She didn’t seem to know Kimmy, and he was still standing there. She didn’t seem to care. She just stood there, with her back to him. His mama was gone. He didn’t know where that certainty came from. Maybe the total lack of any concern she had seconds earlier. Maybe something else, he wasn’t sure, but something had her. Her body slumped like a standing corpse. Just like his dad did, after he yelled at the thing. Shane put his hands over Kimmy’s eyes and drug her backward into the kitchen.

         He struggled to free the lock on the window. There was a thud in the dining room. The undeniable dull echo of a body hitting the floor.

         “Look at the wall, Kimmy, don’t look back.”

         “Oh my god, was that mom? Did it get Mom?” Kimmy asked, panicked.

         “I don’t know. Help me get this loose.” They struggled to force the lock free. A timer ticked down in his mind. He dimly thought: Looks like our contestants are out of time, Johnny. What do we have for them? The evil demon that killed their parents? You betcha! Pressure built in his chest like a boiler. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. They were out of time.



         The dining room fell back into silence.



         The lock broke free, and the window creaked open. “You first,” he said and locked his fingers so she could use his hands as a step.

         “What about Mom?”

         “We’ll run to Ms. Carvers and call the cops. Go. Hurry.” She boosted herself out of the window, landing on a shrub bush. Shane watched her roll to her feet. He was preparing to hoist himself up when his mom’s voice stopped him.

         “Thank God, you’re safe. I need help, look at me.”