I’m speaking it into existence now. As a father, am I afraid of what’s to come? Of course, who wouldn’t be startled by the thought of your son, your kin, your successor becoming the vile prey of a beast, a predator that lives so close and so near yet pretended, yes, he had pretended to be an acquaintance of mine. And he had done a hell of a job at it.
It came to my attention two weeks ago. For clarification, it is just me and my son in the house. My wife had gone missing three years ago, presumed dead. She had just walked down the street to the gas station, fetching some lottery tickets for the weekend. It seems she had walked off the face of the Earth instead. I’ve suspected lately that my neighbour, who shuts all of his lights off by seven, could’ve had an involvement in her disappearance. But this is all a story for another day.
My son is eight years old. His school is rather pathetic, relying on miniscule fundraisers that expect me to come out and contribute to the community for a few bucks that I have to give back anyway. I do, of course. But only for my son. I was put on a fundraiser for pizza deliveries, where people pay me to collect and deliver to their houses. A few people had the common decency to buy mine, only after I had to repeatedly ask. People have no respect. I’ve always believed if you have to ask, you should receive. Immediately. Nonetheless, I was bringing pizzas to their house. I cruised gently down the block in my sedan, arm resting out the open window and the breeze swooping blissfully through my hair. The pizza boxes sat in stacks on the passenger seat. I left my son at home, not yet knowing about the deviancy of my neighbour. People frown upon me when I tell them that I leave my son at home alone. I only laugh with bitter anger. He’s been on this planet eight years, surely experienced enough to have common sense, hasn’t he? I mean, eight years old, for christ sakes!! Did you want me to spoon feed him still?
I walked up the steps to the fifth house of delivery. The box sat flat in my palm with steam coming out the sides as I clicked up the steps of this grand house. It was Bonnie Matheson’s. She was a filthy gold digger.
I rapped on the door and stood there for a few moments before the unnecessarily large double doors swung out before me. Bonnie flashed her cheap as dirt but expected phony smile at me. I did not look into her eyes but instead her teeth, which I’m certain have had work done to them. She’s just that type.
Bonnie’s husband, Cal. He’s almost never home, which leaves the opportunity for her to go and whore around which I’m just certain she does. He’s a CEO for some construction company about a dozen or so hours away, but he brings in the big bills, so that’s why Bonnie sticks around I guess. I’ve only met him once or twice. Stuck-up douchebag, as expected, but I knew what I was getting so I paid no mind to it.
“Ohh, our pizza! I can taste it already!”
Have you ever found someone’s voice so gaudy you wanted to close it? That was Bonnie’s. Sing-songy without the proper fucking vocal chords. Like a farmer on karaoke night.
After having my ears butchered by Bonnie’s voice I noticed a car swung into the driveway beside mine. And out stepped my neighbour. Him and Bonnie were cousins, I think? But knowing her, she probably had him for a good fucking or two.
“Hey, Bon. Bryce.”
I had the slightest hint of a nod.
“Hi, Mike. Bryce brought over some pizza.”
Mike, my neighbour, chuckled. “What’s the occasion?” A slyer remark had never been concocted in the history of mankind. Bravo, Mike.
“No occasion,” she smiled plainly and fake. “I ordered some for the school fundraiser from Bryce.”
It was split second, but she gave me a look. I’m certain of it. It was that snobby bitch look I had been expecting the moment she opened those doors. Head tilted upwards, a hint of anger beneath her eyes. Her mouth had not meant to produce a wry smile but it did, as if to say: “Bryce begged me to order pizza! Begged me!” But no, no that just wasn’t true.
I observed closely at her nose and came to a swift conclusion about the world. All these elegant, rich, tall and fancy wives, the snobs. They all have one thing in common, a long fucking nose. Pointier than a needle to be exact. And Bonnie had one. Her nose was incredibly thin, increasingly long, and dangerously sharp. All the filthy gold diggers had one. I wondered how it would look broken.
“Hey, Bryce.” Mike was that guy at parties that would always walk into the room–no–barge through the door with a backwards cap and a mullet, two beers in his hands and some stupid football jersey on. He believed he was some friendly guy, that he could chat it up with anyone and talk about anything. But he was different with me. See, most guys he would come up to, he’d deliver a nice slap on the back or a loud greeting from afar. With me it was different, like he was afraid of me. I can’t say I fully blame him in that aspect. Especially when I discovered him more.
I was not so intimidated, I nodded my head and handed Bonnie the pizza, attempting to make eye contact with neither and turned, heading down the steps when Bonnie, with that awful voice, screeched at me that I had forgotten to take her money.
I wanted so badly to just hop in my car and speed off anyway, fuck her money. I turned around anyway and continued back. Mike had a chuckle so forced you could tell he was just trying to involve himself in the conversation. “Gee, Bryce, I sure wish I was that negligent about money.” I wanted to tell him to fuck off, so I did so, in my head.
“Yeah.” I muttered.
“I’m sorry, Bryce,” Bonnie said. “I should’ve had it prepared, oh that’s really my fault!” Uh, yeah. It was. No shit, Bonnie.
Suddenly, she pulled out seventy dollars and placed it on my palm. “Here, here Bryce. It’s the least I can do, really. You got here in such fast time and the pizza is still nice and warm, I want to give you at least an extra twenty dollars.”
Seventy dollars. Really? This had to be some kind of trick. Instead of questioning her, I reluctantly said thanks and pocketed it. I was about to turn away and walk to my car again when Mike cut in quickly.
“So, how’s your boy doing?”
My heart dropped. My hands faltered. I was looking for somewhere to run and scream but I found no such energy to do so. I was frozen in place.
“Sorry?”
“Uh, your boy, Max. I saw him playing Basketball in the backyard yesterday. He’s looking pretty good.”
He’s looking good?! What could that mean? Mike was watching my son? He dropped the news with an anvil that sat on my chest and wouldn’t let go. This man, this scoundrel, who had acted like my neighbour, acted like a friend, this schemer of the Matheson family, Mike, MIKE.
“Yeah!” I responded, clearly startled.
I thought of Mike and Bonnie as corpses for a moment.
“Yeah, man. My boy, James, said Max hasn’t been at school lately. What do you, uh, what do you think of the school, Bryce?”
What business is it of yours?! What does my sons well-being mean to people like you?! He’s trying to get me to reveal something. The location of my son, maybe? That must be it.
“Not much.”
“Ah. Hey, uh, you mind if I borrow your rake one day? Leaves are dropping in fast, fall’s coming, y’know?”
My brain was on full alert at this moment. This man was going to take my rake and harvest my son’s organs. It was predetermined. Instead of answering, I bolted to my car and took off. Mike and Bonnie watched from the porch, their devil eyes shone brightly behind me, I felt that sensation of burning heat in my back shoulders. The feeling of fear to come.
I raced home to my son who was watching TV and put him to bed, locking all the doors and windows behind me.
I went into the bathroom and stared at myself for seven minutes. The door was open.
I thought I had heard footsteps in the hallway. I was mistaken.
I heard Mike’s car pull into the driveway. I opened a window and peeked at him. He may have saw me. No matter. He was to be dealt with.
I went to bed.
I kept my son isolated in my house for the next two weeks. He hadn’t seen sunlight in forever. But it was better this way. Mike would have murdered him otherwise.
Then tonight came. I was watching his family through the window. They hopped into his car and drove off. I was unsure of where they were going, I also didn’t care. Without hesitation, I went outside and snuck into his basement window.
It was cold down there. I quickly walked upstairs and examined every part of his house. It all seemed to be clean, too clean, you could say. I was certain he was hiding something.
I spent a while in his son and daughter’s room. I mentally drew out my revenge plan if when he killed my son. I would come back and sneak through his childrens windows and do the same thing. But that was for another time.
I heard the car pull into the driveway, and the front door creak open.
I was still in pilot mode, still figuring everything out in my brain. How I would exact my revenge, hardly realizing I was still in enemy territory.
Footsteps battered up the stairs. I was in the daughter’s bedroom, staring at the window.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Daddy!”
“Yes, hon?”
“My door is locked!”
“What?”
“My door is locked!”
Thump Thump Thump Thump.
The doorknob began to rattle and I was awake again. I pulled up the daughter’s window, making a god awful screeching sound.
“Who’s in there?!”
The ground was about eight feet down. I leaped.
Hitting the ground hard, I heard a cracking noise. I paid no matter, it would heal on its own. I dashed back to my house, arm bent in a very peculiar angle. Speeding up to the back porch, I laced my finger on the doorknob to discover a horrifying reality.
Locked.
I heard one singular pair of footsteps, certainly Mike’s. He was checking the back of the house. I tried the doorknob again as Mike crept towards the back of the house, and when he got there, him and I would be beside each other.
I had to act, so I swooped around to the side of my house and broke the kitchen window, sliding in with glass shards protruding through my arm.
I hid with my son in a closet, and after a while the knocking came. Certainly Mike, the man who intended to kill my son. The knocking ceased after ten minutes. I continued to hide, crying in the process. A shameful thing to do in front of my son, but I was so afraid.
I left the closet and put my son to bed when I heard knocking once again. Only this time, red and blue lights flashed outside my house.
I picked all the shards out of my skin and wrapped up my arms in bandages. I opened the door to a red headed cop, paler than white cheese. Mike stood to the side. I could not read his expression… angry? Sad? No matter. He would be dealt with.
The cops asked me rudimentary questions: who, what, where, when, why. I answered them from the perspective of someone who was completely unaware, and I did quite a job of it.
“What happened to your arm?”
My arm, bent, bruised, and bleeding, stuck out like a sore thumb. Mike was standing there, so I couldn’t say I had broken it awhile ago.
“Was delivering my last batch of pizzas when I fell near my car. Bad spill. I did go get it checked out at the hospital but the doctors don’t have a supply of casts. Can you believe that?”
The cop looked worried. “No casts?”
“None.”
“Well, sir. It shall heal in time.”
Mike looked deep into my eyes, searching for my soul. I was doing the same. All I saw was darkness and evil incarnate. Mike would wait until the police were gone and he would do something horrid. But he didn’t, that came during the night.
The police and Mike were gone and I had put my son to bed with my left arm. I turned off all the lights, locked the doors, and boarded up the window I had broken before I returned to bed.
And then he came. Mike came. He snuck through the house and creeped into my son’s bedroom. I was all too unaware. He thrust my son out of bed and decapitated him with our rake and ate his flesh. I rushed into the room but it was too late. Mike chuckled and laughed and flaunted orange eyes that burned deeper than the embers of the sun, his aura sizzled and his height grew to the roof. His neck craned at me and he walked towards me. My son, a pile of bones on the floor could have no such assistance. Mike grabbed my shoulder with his hand and grabbed my attention with his fiery blazing eyes. His mouth opened wide.
I was suddenly back in bed again, drenched in sweat.
But Mike had just killed my son, I saw him do it.
So I was going to do the same thing.
I looked over at my wife next to me and kissed her on the forehead. She didn’t respond.
I slid open my window and crawled out with my butcher knife, staring at the purple sky.
It is a beautiful night for this.