Lost in Cat Brain Land Page 11

  A hideous elephant-like bellow came from upstairs, followed by the scuffle of sneakers

  The children came into the living room, dragging a camel man by his legs. They pinned the camel man to the floor. It looked about wild-eyed as the real-life camels watched from the back door. Abel remained fixated on the cartoon.

  One child, a little boy, stroked the camel man’s head. The boy plugged the camel’s nostrils with his thumbs and lowered his face to the creature’s mouth. His head vanished between the camel’s jaws, snuffing its yelps.

  The boy slipped all the way into the camel person. The children released the body and turned their attention to the television. The boy in the camel rose to his feet. Joy cried out and ducked into the pantry. She craned her head around the door and stared on as a tentacle broke out of the creature boy’s skull. Its head fell off and rolled across the floor. It was a puppet’s 112

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  head, made out of course fabric and wire. Two tentacles burst from the shoulders and the camel’s arms sailed across the room in opposite directions. The camel’s body doubled over and then rose again. It exploded. Stuffing, spit, and wire shot across the living room and kitchen.

  When the stuffing settled, Joy saw what had been made of the boy. Tentacles identical to Abel’s swung from his body, which had melted into a flesh column of eyeless children’s faces. A tentacle hung from each of the child-mouths. Black slime oozed from the top of the column, where a bald, pale head spun on a green plastic spinal chord that jutted into the body. With each rotation, the head smiled at Joy, grinning a mouthful of long white teeth that squirmed like slugs.

  Joy shut the pantry door and puked in the dark.

  A knock on the pantry door startled her awake. She had fallen into restless half-sleep and dreamed about a mannequin skinning her in a carnival funhouse. The knocker rapped against the door again. She pulled herself up by the shelves and turned the handle.

  Black slime covered the sofas and floor. It rolled down the walls and dripped from the ceiling.

  Abel bent over and greeted her with an umbrella kiss on top of her head. He now stood over ten feet tall. His tentacles stretched long and slender, spanning half the distance of the open kitchen and living room. The pale-faced child monolith stood beside him. Its rubbery teeth fluttered with each rasp it exhaled.

  Children sat at the kitchen table. Others sat on barstools at the counter. Most of them sat in front of the television, watching the camel people in the white room. The camels on the television turned their heads, pointed at Joy, and laughed.

  Their Bibles fell off the screen, into the static white of TV

  Land.

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  Take control of the situation, Joy thought. They will pull me under if I do not take control of the situation. Take control.

  Breathe and take control. Take deep breaths.

  Take control.

  Take control.

  Take control.

  Take control.

  Take control.

  Take control.

  Take control.

  Control.

  Control.

  Control.

  Joy sprung alert. She clapped her hands and smiled at Abel.

  “How would you and your friends like to play a game?” If she could distract them for long enough, she could probably find a way to get rid of the camel people and contact the parents of the child monolith.

  THIRTEEN

  “It is time to go,” Abel said, pointing at the television. “It is time to go to Heaven.”

  The camel people were still laughing. Joy understood none of it. She tried to recall a time when her life did not consist of camel people and crazy children. She wanted life to be just her and Abel again. He’d grown up so fast and now she had another child to raise and protect from dangerous people. The world was full of danger. It was only a matter of time before all hell broke loose.

  “What do you mean we’ll go to Heaven?” Joy said.

  “I was born there,” Abel said.

  “Sweetheart, you can’t go to Heaven,” Joy said.

  “My brother returned and we have our followers now.

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  We must return and conquer. Those ones in the television,”

  he slapped a tentacle against the screen, “they do not belong there.”

  “Oh, but that’s not Heaven. That’s a television show. It’s just make-believe.”

  “No, mommy. It is Heaven.”

  Joy realized that she should play along with her son. Once he realized that going inside a television show was impossible, she could take him to a toy store and see if they carried any camel people action figures. Seeing how the show was popular among the children, she figured it must be the current hit cartoon. “Alright,” she said, “we can go to Heaven.”

  “We are going, but you cannot go with us,” Abel said.

  “What do you mean I can’t come with you?”

  “Only angels go to Heaven.”

  “Abel, it isn’t nice to exclude your mother.”

  The children turned to each other and mockingly said,

  “Abel, it isn’t nice to exclude your mother.”

  Abel wrapped his tentacles around the child monolith.

  “Mother is a bitch. You should marry her.”

  “Don’t you use that language, young man!” Joy said.

  “Or strangle her,” the child monolith said.

  “Yes, strangle her,” Abel said.

  Joy gasped. The presence of this ghastly thing had changed her sweet baby into a monster. She loved Abel so much. She wanted to take him into her arms and flee the house, but there were still the camel people to worry about. Horrors within and horrors without, she thought. My life is one big horror show. “Okay, okay. Get with it,” she said, accidentally speaking aloud.

  “Mommy is talking to herself again,” Abel said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean, you little snot?” Joy said.

  Her own words repelled her.

  “Come on,” he said, pulling the monolith with him. “Leave her with the minions. The holy passage should be ready soon.”

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  Abel floated across the room and smashed the television.

  The screen flashed bright white. The camel people sitting in the room became real, identical to the ones cramped in televisions outside the back door. Abel spit lava-flows of black slime as he and his brother skipped tentacle in tentacle out of the living room, coating the entire house in drippy darkness.

  FOURTEEN

  Joy took a few steps toward the hallway, but something in the living room caught her eye. The camel people reached out of the broken television, pressing buttons on the front panel as if to change the channel on themselves. They toyed with every button until finding the right one. Joy froze as one of the camels belted out an opera-howl sheathed in static.

  The glass of the back door shattered. The camels outside clapped their puppet hands. Two camels crawled out of the living room television. Joy backpedaled and tripped over a chair. The child sitting in the chair fell onto the floor beside her. The camel people staggered between children.

  They stood over Joy and the fallen child. For a reason unknown to Joy, the television camels were immune to the children, although they licked their chops and drooled as they eyed the slimy little bodies.

  “God hath mercy on those who weep,” the camel people chanted. “God hath mercy on those who obey the will of the law. Give us the angel or be struck by lightning in your mind.”

  “Torture somebody else,” Joy said. “I’ll call the cops on you.” Of course, she knew she couldn’t really call the cops. She was a child abductor now. She was no better than the criminals she feared and hated. Well, of course she was better than them.

  She had to be. She knew herself deep down and saw a good heart.

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  The camels spit. Their phlegm sailed through the air in slow motion. Three children lifted Joy to her feet. They stepped in front of her and blocked the camels’ spit attack. As the children disintegrated into thousands of earwigs, the fallen child pulled Joy by the hand into the office at the end of the hallway. The child locked the door and motioned for her to help it slide a bookcase in front of the door.

  The camel people pounded on the door, but it held better than it had under the beatings of Bill. Joy looked around the office, cringing at the stacks of unfulfilled eBay orders. How did I get locked in here again, she wondered. Well, now business would surely tank, and with a weirdo mutant leading her son down a dark path, nothing could be done anymore. She may as well give up.

  The child scurried around the room, picking up packages meant to be mailed. It pushed the computer aside and stacked the parcels on the desk. On top of the mountain of boxes, the child shoved books taken from the shelves.

  Joy crinkled her brow, truly puzzled. The child crawled onto the makeshift tower and Joy reached out to grab her. “Get down from there. It’s not safe,” she said.

  The camel people gave up on the door. Joy hesitated between the door and the girl. Certainly the camels headed for Abel now.

  The girl drew her index finger along the ceiling and traced an octagon in black slime. “There are many paths to Heaven,”

  she said.

  The part of the ceiling enclosed by the black octagon melted into air particles, opening a route to the second story. The girl curled her index finger, enticing Joy to step toward her.

  The girl gripped two sides of the octagon and lifted herself through the ceiling. Her legs dangled for a moment and then disappeared. Joy stood beside the tower and squinted through the ceiling gap. She realized that the little girl was helping her, that she had opened a passage to Abel.

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  She climbed onto the desk and scaled the boxes and books. It bent and swayed beneath her weight but held steady long enough for her to reach into the octagon and rise out of the office.

  She rolled away from the hole and stared up at the ceiling of the guest bedroom. She recalled putting Abel to bed in here, how the cat tore up all the bedding. It occurred to her that maybe the cat was innocent. Abel had been a problem child right from the start. But he’s my problem child, Joy thought.

  My poor mothering must be the cause of this whole disaster.

  She got to her feet. I love him so much that I’ve done wrong. Where did I go wrong? She looked about for the little girl but saw her nowhere. The door stood slightly ajar, so she assumed the girl already made her way toward Abel and his freak brother.

  She left the guest room. Slime oozed down the walls of the hallway. She looked over the staircase and down to the first floor. It was as if everything had been painted black. She tried to forget the irreparable damage that had been done and faced the master bedroom. When she felt ready, after a few deep breaths, she walked inside. Still nailed to the mattress, Bill twitched. Bubbles gurgled up from his wounds and floated into the air. The bubbles began to form letters. They spelled out a message. I’ll be coming for you.

  Joy shuddered. “In Hell you will,” she said. She slid against the wall to keep as far from her mutilated husband as possible.

  She tilted her head to peer into the bathroom. Children sat on the counters and the floor. The shower door hung ajar. Abel’s umbrella head whirled over the top of its glass walls. The child monolith bent over at his feet, running its flimsy white teeth into the drain, which melted away, as if the monolith’s saliva contained some sort of acid.

  The little girl stopped sucking on one of the monolith’s tentacles and turned to Joy. “There she is,” the girl said, angry.

  “The intruder came to stop us.”

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  not true. That isn’t true at all. This house belongs to me and my son. Abel, this little girl led me up here and now she’s telling me I don’t belong. Is she a friend of yours? What kind of joke are you playing?”

  Abel pushed his brother aside and stepped out of the shower.

  He marched up to Joy, wrapped his tentacles around her legs, and swept her off her feet. Joy’s skull cracked against the tile. A stabbing pain flowed down her spine. “Mommy, I am sorry to abandon you,” Abel said. “I am an angel from Heaven. I only needed you to protect me until I could grow back into my true self. Now I must return. Do not worry. You belong with the television demons. My minions will take you to them. You can be among your own kind again.”

  “What do you mean?” Joy said. “I am not a camel. I’d give my life for you.”

  “And you will,” Abel said. “The world outside is ready for you to join them again.” He returned to the shower. Its floor transformed into a rusted metal tube and he slid down into darkness with his brother and the little girl.

  Joy trembled and curled up on the floor. The remaining children took her in their arms, lifted her above their heads, and carried her out of the bathroom. They took her out of the bedroom, down the stairs, across the entryway, and tossed her onto the doorstep. They locked the door and ran back upstairs, leaving Joy alone and forsaken.

  FIFTEEN

  Joy looked out at the world from the doorstep. Earwigs and sea monsters fil ed an inky green sky. Longer than school buses, the monsters glinted like oxblood diamonds. She pressed against the front door and pounded on the glass panes. “Abel, open up,” she said. “It’s your mother. Don’t leave your mother out here.”

  A dark shape moved out of the shadows of the porch. It sat 119

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  in the rocking chair closest to Joy and rocked slowly. “How did you get off the mattress?” she cried. Her hands slid down the door and rose to her face. “How did you get off the mattress?”

  She clawed at her eyes until they bled and stung.

  Even then, Bill rocked in the chair. The cat paws rising from his neck stub waved at her. The paws clapped together and formed a mouth between their claws. “I promised I’d return,”

  Bill said. “Now let’s love each other like we used to do.”

  Joy clenched her right hand into a fist and punched the glass pane. It shattered, but sliced her hand so badly that she withdrew it before unlocking the door. She pulled a six-inch sliver from the meat between her thumb and index finger. Bill stopped rocking and stood. He ripped out a cat paw and wound up softball-style. Joy turned too late.

  The paw latched onto her skull and tore out a clump of hair. She ran down the walkway as the paw scalped her raw and bald. Bill skipped after her, dancing as if he took part in some deranged musical.

  She reached the middle of the street and freed herself of the paw. She tossed it behind her and kept running. She ran past the row of mailboxes, past house after house. A block later, she felt too winded to carry on. She turned around. She’d gained a lot on Bill, who hop-staggered far behind her.

  She bent over to catch her breath and wiped the blood from her eyes. The monsters in the sky ignored her. They made zero noise as they swirled about up there. It seemed to Joy that they vacuumed up all the normal sounds of a neighborhood.

  Joy sucked in a final deep breath and took off jogging with her eyes closed. Blinking hurt too much.

  Down the road, she opened her eyes because she could not handle closing them anymore. Running blindly frightened her.She stopped dead in her tracks.

  An army of camel people stuffed into televisions blocked the road.

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  Behind her, Bill sang in the near distance.

  And she realized, as the camels dragged themselves out of the televisions and jaunted toward her, the impossibility of escape.

  The camel people pinned her to the asphalt.

  Joy prayed that someday she and her child might meet in Heaven, or anywhere
beyond this monstrous world. Anywhere at all, without the cruelty, so long as Abel would forgive her.

  Deep in her heart, she still felt that somehow she had betrayed him. It could not be the other way around. She refused to believe that this was anyone’s fault but her own.

  The camel people undressed the woman as the creatures above opened their mouths and sang a lullaby.

  121

  THE GREEN MONSTER

  AND HIS LONELINESS

  The green monster threw a ball for his loneliness to fetch, and when his loneliness ignored the ball, he sat on the cave floor and cried. “You horrible beast,” he said. “I’m tired of this. Find another home if you won’t play with me.”

  The loneliness yawned as it uncurled after a noontime siesta in the half shade of the cave’s mouth. It licked its fur clean and ignored the green monster.

  “Why did I adopt such a terrible loneliness?” said the green monster, moss-colored tears dripping down his face. He stood and walked to the cave mouth. He scooped the loneliness into his arms and kicked its bottom.

  The loneliness zoomed over the valley and splashed into the Bored, Bored River. And as soon as it disappeared into that lazy gray water, the green monster realized his mistake, and he called his loneliness back to him.

  When the sun fell, the green monster had already phoned every loneliness shelter in town. Luckless, he listened to the dial tone and pretended to hear the voice, that fuzzy silence, of his beloved loneliness.

  122

  I AM MEAT,

  I AM IN DAYCARE

  When Ted Branson called to ask the rate for Susan’s daycare service, she never realized his child was a slab of meat. Now the man pushed her aside and lugged his meat-child into her house.

  “Name’s Mr. Branson, but call me Ted,” he said. “Should I put him with the other kids, or will you take him from here?”