My name is Marcus, and I’m an alcoholic. I know what you’re thinking: this is just another sob story about some loser whose life went off the rails after he found the bottle, right? Well, it’s not exactly that simple. Bill, my sponsor at Alcoholics Anonymous suggested that should I ever hope to get clean, I’d have to face my demons, once and for all. While he has no reason to suspect that my demons are far more literal than the average addict, I think he’s right nonetheless.
This is my fourth or fifth time trying to kick the habit. Can’t say for sure as so much of my personal history is somewhat cluttered, or otherwise hidden beneath the dregs at the bottom of one bottle or another. At one point, I even branched out into other methods of tucking away reality behind the veil, but the overdose that almost punched my ticket was enough to convince me to stick to more of an ingested form of inebriation.
Yes, booze isn’t exactly risk-free and all, but it takes a bit more work to drink too much of that, while it only took one needle to lead me right to the threshold of death’s door. Excuses, right? Yeah, we addicts are full of those; always something to defend our actions, whether reasonable or not. This isn’t about defending my years of intoxication, but the things I wished to drown away in the first place; a confession of my sins, so to speak.
I was fourteen when it happened, as me and my fellow Boy Scouts spent the weekend out in the wilderness some miles from my home. It was Liam who talked us into joining up that summer, and while I was a little apprehensive at first, as I’d never been much of an outdoorsy type, John, Malcolm, and Ian were on board as soon as it was suggested.
They were basically my only friends, so I wasn’t about to be the odd man out, but I’d much rather be at home with my Playstation 2 and Xbox than tossing and turning in a sleeping bag for a few days. Not only that, but I felt as if we were getting a little too old for such things. Once we were out there, though, I ended up having a lot more fun than I had anticipated.
Gilroy, the scout leader, was in his early twenties, so he wasn’t too uptight or anything; just sort of laid back. He was the uncle of some kid named Bennie, who had been part of the troupe longer than any of us. He was an alright kid; a bit of a know-it-all and a stickler for ‘the code’, as he called it, but even he managed to relax and chill out some once we got out to the lake.
We spent a good bit of that first afternoon fishing and cutting up. I almost impaled John’s ear with my hook at one point, but he turned his head just in time to allow it to do no more than tap the back of his head. I was about as coordinated as a drunken breakdancer back then; still am for that matter, though the drink is likely a factor in that.
John looked shocked at first as we both just stared at one another when my line finally dropped limp to the grass, but we were cracking up within seconds. Though I would’ve felt awful if I had jabbed the damn thing into his lobe, I often wonder if a trip to the emergency room would’ve saved us from those events that still haunt me.
When the sun went down on that Saturday the 28th of September, 2002, we set a bonfire, around which we would take turns telling scary stories. Whether this was simply something of a tradition; to gather around the controlled blaze and let our imaginations fly, or we just wanted to inspire each other to have a little extra trouble sleeping that night, with urban legends and folklore keeping our eyes wide and alert, I couldn’t say.
Whatever the case, I was a little excited about this, as I had always been ‘the creative child’, while my older brother had a more intellectual and logical mind. When we were just kids, I assumed that was my father’s way of avoiding saying I was the stupid one, as he was quite the intelligent man himself, but I loved my ability to daydream about far-off and wonderous places. These days, my creativity only tortures me even more with the things I’ve been through.
After the sun went down, a gentle wind began to caress the lakeside by which we were spending the night. As the temperature dropped, the heat of the fire was a most welcome sensation to my gooseflesh. With the warmth easing our collectively shivering frames, we all sat in a circle around the fire, passing the flashlight that would serve as our microphone from one to the next.
While I hadn’t necessarily been prepared for this, as it wasn’t discussed until the sun fell to rest for the night, I never had a hard time throwing together an impromptu tale. I barely paid attention to most of the stories that would come before mine, as I was mentally preparing for the task at hand; one that I was most certainly taking more seriously than anyone else. That’s what I thought at the time anyway.
The first handful of tall tales couldn’t so much as break through the wall formed around my inwardly mapping out my tale. The fifth kid to speak up; Reggie, I think was his name, almost grabbed my attention, but when the climax ramped up to something bordering on intense, the boy in the story woke up, revealing it was all just a dream in the end.
I know these were just silly campfire stories told by children anywhere from ten to fourteen, but I always saw that sort of ending as a cop-out, even if it was just made up on the fly by a sixth grader. I just rolled my eyes before blocking out the next story; the second one to involve a monster under the bed.
Even John and Malcolm couldn’t produce anything of high enough quality to distract me from my world-building and character development. There were fourteen of us in all, not counting Gilroy, who came off far too enthusiastic about every tale that was spun, but I had made sure to sit next to Bennie, who volunteered to speak first that night, as I wanted mine to be the last.
Not only did I want the extra time to craft my tale before the clockwise rotation would lead all eyes to me, but I was certain mine would be an absolute banger; assuring that everyone would have trouble sleeping that night. My mouth was practically watering with anticipation until the flashlight was handed to Liam. From the second he began to speak, I couldn’t hope to distract myself from his story; one that sticks to my mind like gorilla glue to this day.
With the light shining under his chin, as was the tradition for such tales spun around a fire, his voice sounded both somber and sinister as he spoke. While other kids had joked and laughed during every story that came before, nobody spoke during this one, nor did even one eye drift from the boy highlighted by the illumination of the torchlight and flickering flames.
Whether it was the words he spoke or the way he spoke them, I can still recall every syllable, even after all these years. He called this tale:
•
The Betrayal of the King
Barnaby King was not a child that any parent hoped for. Not only was he hideously deformed; something that inspired the nurse to scream out when he was brought into this world, but he would prove to be more than a handful to his mother and father.
He did not cry when he was born, nor did he scream out from the shocking and jarring transition into this world; only gazed up at his mother with those tiny, black, and empty eyes. While Katherine and Harold King were in equal stages of horror as they stared down at their newborn abomination, they attempted not to reflect this feeling to one another; only to bravely face the cards they had been dealt.
As the years passed by, the Kings would turn away visitors to their home, even their parents who had hoped to be a part of their grandson’s life. While they never explained the reasoning behind why they would refuse them entry to their home, it would never stop their loved ones from trying.
It was Harold, more so than Katherine, who would not allow young Barnaby to be seen by any prying eyes. Whether it was shame that inspired this or simply those fears he would never speak aloud, his wife was uncertain. Of course, she shared his feelings, regardless of how hard she fought to convince herself that she loved her child. Yes, his nature seemed as grotesque as his face, but she hoped she could find a way to change both aspects for the better someday.
By the time Barnaby reached his tenth year in this world, his parents had him confined to the basement. This was something that they were certain was necessary after he began his late-night outings some months prior to the decision to essentially imprison him. It wasn’t until Harold noticed the blood trail leading from the woods behind the house to a mutilated corpse of a squirrel, halfway buried next to the patio, that he understood something was amiss.
That night after Katherine had allowed her sleeping pills to kick in, he stayed awake to keep an eye on things. He snuck out to his tool shed at the rear of the backyard, right next to the tree line, making sure to remain as silent as possible so as not to alert any wildlife to his presence. Though he had a sneaking suspicion of who indeed was responsible for the strewn-apart remains of the forest creature, he desperately hoped he was mistaken.
When he saw young Barnaby stealthily creeping from the back door through the split wood of the shed’s wall, he felt his back tense with the knowledge that his first impression had been the right one. The boy darted those black eyes from one side to the other as he snuck softly across the yard, hunched over with slick drool seeping from that enlarged and low-hanging underbite.
Finding himself reluctant to follow his son into the woods as he watched him pass his view from the shed, Harold realized he had not fully thought this through. Yes, the boy was still small for his age, but he still wore some scars left in the wake of the jagged teeth from those early years. He couldn’t help but feel that should Barnaby not locate something to satiate his hunger, he would turn those ankle biters on his father once more.
He still argued with himself that his own flesh and blood could not truly be capable of such a grievous act, regardless of this late-night jaunt into the woods. It was as he waged this inner debate, uncertain of how much time had passed, that he noticed his son coming back into view. The rabbit he held between the elongated fingers of his left hand was wriggling and squealing, but the child paid its moans no mind.
Harold had to cover his mouth to prevent a similarly pitched shriek from escaping when the boy raised the panicked animal to his lips. The horrified sounds of the poor creature combined with the tearing of its fur-lined flesh caused the man hidden away in the shed to close his eyes, lest his dinner retching to the floor expose him. Even covering his ears, he could not fully block away the moist, ripping, and snapping of bones as Barnaby finished his snack.
Once those gruesome noises dissipated, a reluctant Harold glanced back through the split wood to see the boy still holding what was left of the blood-soaked rabbit in the hand that hung below his knees. Again he glanced from one side to the next as he approached the house, kneeling and pulling away a loose board beneath the patio, stashing the beast away.
After the work was done, he crept back into his home, taking one more glance behind him. Harold could swear that blackened eye gazed directly into the wide and trembling one that peered through the gap in the wall, but when his son gently closed the door behind him, he finally allowed a shaky breath to escape his lips.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t difficult to convince Barnaby to relocate to the basement, though at the time, he was not yet aware he would remain locked away behind a heavy and padlocked door. Harold had performed the renovations himself, being quite adept in working with his hands, as any seasoned contractor should be. He was just as glad of the soundproofing as the sturdy walls and doors by the time the boy understood his new circumstances.
They would make sure he was fed through a slot in the door. He had a full bathroom, fitted with a shower in his apartment below ground level, as well as cable, gaming systems, and plenty of books to entertain him. These measures were taken to ease their conscience, more than their sons’ needs, of course, but it was enough to help them sleep at night, as well as resuming activities they had not indulged in since Barnaby came along.
When Lilian was born; something that filled the couple with terror, as they feared another demon spawn had taken root in Katherine’s womb, they were thrilled to see that they finally had the child they had always hoped for. She was the light of their lives, and just as beautiful as her mother was at such a young age. Naturally, they planned to never introduce their children to one another; something that would require a lot more work as she grew older.
Seasons came and went; each one bringing new and wonderful experiences with the King’s and their little girl. She was a well-behaved little girl for the most part, aside from the time she got in a scuffle with a boy at school. Harold boiled over with rage when she informed him that the older child was teasing her, before pushing her around.
Having been something of a hothead in his youth; one prone to lashing out at others should he find a reason to, Lily’s father had to compose himself after hearing this. While he was tempted to go to the boy’s house and confront him for what he did, he swore he would never return to his old and impulsive ways. When his daughter assured him all was well; how the kid left her alone after she sank her teeth into his arm, Harold let go of his rage.
He was; however, quite concerned about the possibility of Lily having ingested any of the blood, had she even bit down enough to break the skin. While she understood his concerns, especially with all of the potential illnesses out there that she may or may not have exposed herself to, her father was relieved to hear she had not caused any more than some bruising with her bite.
While the Kings’ would attend every event they could at their daughters’ school; talent shows and plays, track meets, and all, they felt no guilt about neglecting Barnaby. Lily was an outgoing girl with a great many friends, and her parents did everything they could to please her, while only granting minimal efforts to assure themselves that their son maintained his sorrowful existence.
It was on the eve of young Lily’s eleventh birthday that their happy life took a far more brutal turn; one that would rip their world apart in a matter of minutes at most. Unbeknownst to Katherine and Harold, their daughter had been aware of her sibling for some years by this point. Though they had never been able to meet face to face, they had found a way to communicate.
When she was much smaller and far lighter on her feet, she had followed behind her father as he carried the nightly meal to her brother. While they always made sure she was otherwise occupied or distracted when one of them would make those excursions to the basement, twice a day, the Kings had not noticed that she had grown steadily more aware of their more erratic behavior at those times of the day.
Being a curious child, as many would be under such circumstances, she planned out her investigation for a solid week before taking the plunge. Her heart was positively racing as she crept behind her father, making sure to duck down or hide behind whatever furniture she may be closest to should he look to be about to turn. Though tracking her target through the quite large house ended when he reached the door to the basement, as he locked it behind him, she knew now what her next steps would be.
Harold kept the keys to the entrance to the stairway that led to the apartment below hanging with those others from the loop of his belt. She would have to work more stealthily than ever to retrieve this while her parents slept, but she was certain she could pull it off. When her loving guardians tucked her in that night, she would not allow sleep to take her.
While it wasn’t easy to keep herself awake, especially given the fact she had to resist the urge to play or otherwise occupy her mind in the darkness of her bedroom, she managed to battle away slumber. It was around two in the morning that she made her move, creaking open the door to her room before approaching the one occupied by her folks.
Though she was fully prepared with an excuse; one involving nightmares that sprung her eyes back open, leading her to seek refuge in her parents’ bed, she was still increasingly nervous as she entered their room. She moved swiftly and silently as she clutched her hand around the keys, sitting on the nightstand, squeezing them tightly to not allow a potential jingle to alert her father to her subterfuge.
She was panting for breath as she made her way back into the hallway, but she had achieved the first part of her goal. It didn’t take her tiny legs long to reach the locked door and her fingers were tingling with anticipation, quickly turning to frustration as she tried one key after the other. With another heavy and trembling sigh, she finally located the correct key, splaying open the door before her.
Barnaby was scared at first when she spoke softly through the flap in the heavy entrance to his apartment. His fear momentarily gave way to anger when she revealed who she was; something that made the little girl afraid, leading her to begin to back away. His rage dissipated quickly when the only friendly voice he had ever heard began to fade, inspiring him to practically beg her to stay.
For hours they spoke that night, eventually allowing the boy to grow comfortable with his sister enough to lean his face down to the thin flap through which his meals were delivered. She gasped at first, even seeing only the portion of him that she could make out, but when she reached her tiny fingers through the slender opening to touch the rough texture of her brother’s cheek, he felt a warmth he had never known.
Before Lily returned to her bedroom, Barnaby confessed to his sister his efforts to escape. While he had achieved no more than the slightest of splits at the top of the wall between him and the outside world, over years of scraping away at it with the plastic cutlery provided with his meals, it was enough for something. Each day from then, sometimes multiple times if the coast was clear enough, they two would pass notes back and forth.
Though Lily would occasionally make late-night stealth missions to converse with her brother, she could not risk overdoing it, as her father could be quite perceptive at times. Still, while she had all in life for which a girl could ask, she finally had that one thing that money could not buy: an older brother.
After three years of such meager forms of communication, Lily swore to her brother that she would set him free. Being that she had only heard his version of the things that left him hidden away from the world, she saw him as the victim in this, while her beloved parents were somewhat nefarious in so many ways that she never could have predicted.
While the keychain she would sneak away with in the wee hours of the morning did not include those that would unlatch the numerous locks Barnaby was imprisoned behind, it would take weeks for her to uncover where the ones she needed were hidden. It was on a school day in midweek when she would ultimately track them down, having convinced her loving guardians she was in no fit state to leave the house.
Given that she had never shown the slightest signs of irresponsibility to her mother and father, they did not question her motivations, though neither of them could stay home with her that day, as they had their own responsibilities to attend to. She assured them she would not need a babysitter; something that took some effort to persuade them on, but she could be quite the talented actress when she wanted something badly enough.
Having shadowed her father for those weeks leading up to the planned jailbreak, she saw that he would always return to his study after dropping off the daily meals to his son. Though he would close the door behind him, she still managed to take a peek through the keyhole. It was then that she was able to see him inspecting the contents of a drawer on the left side of his desk. He only took a glance before closing and locking it, but she assumed it was a ritual of sorts; to ensure the keys to his son’s prison remained untouched.
Though Harold had his keychain looped to his belt as he reluctantly headed to work that morning, Lily saw no reason to leave things as she found them this time. It would be very clear what had transpired when he would return that evening; that his prisoner had been freed. The crowbar she found amongst the other tools in the garage made quick work of the drawer, even with the desk being seemingly made of quality materials.
When she looked upon the only contents; the ring of keys she had hoped to find there, Lily wasted no time in sprinting to the basement, using the crowbar once more to spring open the door at the top of the stairs. Though it took some time to decipher which key went to which lock, that only made her smile that much more genuine when she truly looked upon her brother, face to face, for the first time.
Yes, those small, blackened eyes and low-hanging jaw, lined with needle-thin teeth unsettled her somewhat, even with the teasing glances through the slot in the bottom of the door. The small, upturned nose and pointed ears, with scraggly long ginger hair hanging beside them were equally as jarring, but his expression, if that’s what she could call it, only held love behind it.
They embraced one another, each leaking tears upon their siblings’ shoulders. Barnaby had never known this sensation; to truly feel wanted and adored. All he was familiar with was contempt and hatred for having the nerve to be brought into this world, but Lily only saw her brother in those glossy eyes, not the monster their father knew him to be.
It was while they were packing up his belongings; what little he had, that a sound inspired both of their faces to grow cold from blood loss. The front door of the house being unlocked and opened, followed by frenzied curses spitting from their mother’s lips when she seemingly saw the basement door ajar, left the two with limited options.
Lily asked her brother to stay behind as she walked up the steps to find Katherine already standing in the doorway, looking as pale and shocked as the young girl felt. Barnaby heard his sister as she attempted to convince their mother to grant the boy freedom; something she seemed unwilling to hear.
He tried to cover his ears to block out the argument between mother and daughter as it grew more erratic, but it was of little use. Finally, hopeful that he could somehow aid in this debate, he slowly paced up the steps for the first time in years. He walked through the doorway to see his mother on the phone, seemingly demanding that her husband returns to his home immediately.
She screamed so loudly when she turned to see her son, that Barnaby thought her hair may just turn white from the shock. As it was his father who would bring him his meals, he had not so much as heard Katherine’s voice in so long, let alone seen her face, but he could easily recall that expression of hatred and disgust she gave him. Be it from the trembling of his extremities, or just the shame of those old familiar looks the sight of him would bring, he was only vaguely aware of what happened next; at first, anyway.
As he and the woman who birthed him stared at one another; each in their own initial stages of anguish, their shared expressions turned to horror when little Lilian leaped on her mother, sinking her teeth into the meaty tissue of her throat. As the blood practically gushed against the walls, Barnaby fell to his knees, barely able to wrap his mind around what he was witnessing.
When his sister pulled her head back, tearing away the grizzled and sticky fibers, her mother just glared at her in shock as she fell to the floor.
“What did you do?” Barnaby asked, shaking his head from side to side.
“It was the only way, my love,” she replied, wiping her mouth with the back of her arm, smearing her mother’s lifeblood across her cheek in the process.
She still looked upon her brother with loving affection, even as her face began to contort as her body grew.
“I’ll show you how to do it if you want,” she said as her appearance finalized its transition, leaving her a carbon copy of the woman who lay dead on the floor, “You don’t have to live like that. Not if you don’t want to.”
She lay her hand on the mutated face of her brother, allowing him to convince himself for a moment that his mother had finally accepted him.
Though she had already dragged the body down to the basement when their father arrived back home, she had not a chance to clean away the shimmering crimson puddle left in its wake, nor the drag marks that led to the door. Harold demanded to know what had happened, terrified that Barnaby had gotten loose and devoured his darling baby girl.
Lily disposed of him just as quickly as she had his wife; this time luring him into an embrace with her stolen tongue, digging her teeth into his throat when his guard was down. Her brother had not witnessed this one, as he lingered in the basement with the remains of his mother; something he had not the slightest desire to be trapped beside, regardless of his sister’s insistence he hide away while she dealt with daddy.
When she walked back down the stairs; this time wearing Harold’s face, she dropped his body beside his wife, before she knelt beside the only family she cared about.
“They lied to us,” she said, again caressing his face with her hand, “they would’ve never let you loose. It had to be done.”
Barnaby did not speak, only gazed with his tiny, black eyes as wide as they were capable of growing.
When Lily dipped her hand into the pool of blood surrounding her mother, she held it to her brother’s face.
“It’s easy,” she said, pulling his recoiling head back to face her, “I learned it long ago; what we can do. I know you can do it too.”
As she pressed her other hand on the low-hanging jaw, she poured the blood cupped in her palm. When Barnaby attempted to turn away and spit out the foul-tasting fluid, she slapped his mouth back shut, holding it in place until he swallowed.
It took some hours, as well as a lot of convincing from his sister; some debating, retching, and even arguing, but by the time night fell, the boy stood his mother’s image, while Lily maintained her father’s form.
“Anyone you drink, you can become them,” she said, mimicking Harold’s voice, “that’s what I’ve found anyway. Never tried an animal, but it might work too.”
Barnaby nodded, only replying to her when expected.
Though she had lied to her father about breaking the skin of the older boy who bullied her when she was younger, she was well aware of what his concerns truly were at the time. When she gazed into the bathroom mirror, after fleeing from the child as he attempted to stop the flow of blood, she saw not herself, but the boy she left leaking fluids upon the grass.
She never understood why Harold King had turned his back on what she believed him to be; the exact thing she and her brother were, but it was his neglect of their god-given gifts that fueled the hatred she grew towards him. Had he allowed his children to learn what they were capable of at an earlier age, her brother need never have been locked away from the world, as he could have taken any face he chose, rather than being led to believe he was a monster this whole time.
Though Barnaby had despised his parents for as long as he could remember, he never wanted this. He was ashamed of these baser instincts that led him to feed on the wildlife behind their home when he was far too young to understand why. Admittedly, he could have never predicted this, but he would not continue to be a part of it; that much he swore to himself.
Some hours after the two had laid down to rest; Lily back in her bedroom, having returned to her smaller proportions, and Barnaby still wearing his mother’s face, he crept out into the night, not unlike how he had in his younger years. He would not seek out anything to fulfill those once-forgotten urges, nor would he return to the house in which he had been imprisoned. While he did love his sister, he could not stay with her; not after witnessing what she was capable of.
The young girl was heartbroken when she awoke the following morning to find no trace of her beloved brother. Her temper raged, inspiring her to beat holes in the walls and tip and break the furniture her parents had worked hard to accumulate. As time went on, she grew bitter and resentful of the one she had set free; the one she had killed for. She swore she would track him down someday and make him pay for leaving her alone; something she was now so close to, she could practically smell his fear.
•
Every eye around the campfire was glued to Liam as he finished his tale, as he cut his gaze from one of us to the next. With the madness and fury behind his reddening stare, I finally understood that this was not simply some story he made up for the sake of scaring his fellow scouts, but that Lilian King herself sat before us, hidden away behind the boy I called a friend.