Here Be Demons Read online

Here Be Demons

  David Wesley Hill

  Copyright 2013 David Wesley Hill

  "The Pain of Others" was originally published in Read By Dawn III.

  "Sometimes I Almost Feel Like a Real Human Being" was originally published in Candlelight.

  The Mermaids of the Darian Coast (short story)

  The Execution of Thomas Doughty by Francis Drake (essay)

  Searching for the Golden Hinde (essay)

  Calling the Children (science fiction short story)

  Moles (science fiction short story)

  On a Lazy Summer Afternoon (horror short story)

  The Thinner Man (horror short story)

  My Two Sons (horror short story)

  The Curtain Falls and Other Stories

  (award winning science fiction and fantasy stories)

  Castaway on Temurlone (science fiction novel)

  At Drake's Command (sea adventure novel)

  The Pain of Others

  I went down to the basement and pulled Sam out of the dryer. He was giggling. He enjoys tumbling in that machine. I singed my fingers on his hair while dragging him through the small round window.

  "What you want, Frank?" Sam asked. He's not much taller than my knee and his eyes are the shape and color of egg yolks and his lips stretch right out of sight on either side of his face. Maybe it's because his mouth is so large that he can imitate any voice he hears.

  "You know the Hansens?"

  "I've seen them. Mr. and Mrs. and their boy, Erik. They've got a dog, too."

  "That's them. Well, they're going to Florida for a couple weeks. Except for Ralph. The dog. They asked Barry Ost to look after Ralph."

  Sam bounced up and down at this news. "I get it. I get it. Who do you want me to be, Frank?"

  "Probably Mr. Hansen."

  "I can do that. I've heard him lots of times. We'll have fun, won't we, Frank? Lot's of fun."

  Sam was so excited that he started chasing rats. He's pretty quick and already had one in his fist before I was halfway up the stairs.

  Sam isn't very bright but he can read a little so I wrote out a script for him to follow. Then I went to the living room. Dad was sitting on the couch with a rocks glass of vodka in one hand and the remote in the other.

  He had stripped down to an undershirt and boxer shorts like he does every evening. Both his legs were pale and hairy but the right one was shriveled and half the thickness of the other and the toes were crimped together. Dad tells people who ask about his limp that he had polio when he was a kid. This isn't the truth. His leg has always been like that.

  He was watching the news but lowered the volume so I could read him what I had written.

  "I like it," he said. "When are you going to make the call?"

  "The Hansens are leaving early. I'll phone Barry in the afternoon."

  "Sounds about right. Say, you know where your mother is?"

  "She told Courtney not to expect her until late. Didn't mention why."

  "What are we supposed to do about dinner?"

  "There's leftover Chinese in the refrigerator."

  I went out onto the porch and settled into one of the white plastic chairs and watched cars go by. I was bored. I'm always bored. Sometimes it seems like I've been bored for hundreds of years. All my life.

  Mom came home not long after dark and sat beside me. The neighborhood was hushed and this allowed us to hear distinctly the rhythmic sound of sex coming from the living room behind us.

  “You’d think they’d get tired of that,” Mom observed.

  The next afternoon Courtney and I brought the phone down into the basement. Sam’s lips moved while he read the script I’d prepared.

  “I can do this,” he said. “No problem, Frank.”

  I dialed the number for him since he doesn’t have real fingers and held the phone to his ear. “Barry,” he said in perfect imitation of Mr. Hansen’s voice, “Joe Hansen here. No, nothing’s the matter. But we won’t be needing you to look after Ralph after all. No, no, nothing like that. We’re having him taken to a kennel. Beverly just decided she’d feel better knowing the old boy will receive professional care. Don’t worry about the mail, either. We’ve made other arrangements.”

  Sam was giggling the moment I switched off the phone. “I did good, didn’t I?” he said. “Real good.”

  We were sitting on the linoleum tiling with our backs against the washer and dryer. Much of the basement was finished but the far end was bare concrete and dirt. That area was littered with old bones and droppings and in one corner was the mouth of a tunnel that Sam had scrabbled out by hand through years of effort.

  Ten feet past the entrance the tunnel divided. One branch led to the basements of houses all across the neighborhood. The other wound deep into the dark beneath the ground. Only Sam knew exactly where it led.

  Courtney was chewing gum. She blew a large bubble and said, “When do you think we should check on Ralph?”

  “The day after tomorrow,” I answered. “Or the day after that. They probably left enough food out for that long at least.”

  “And water,” Sam piped up. “Don’t forget water.”

  “And water,” I said.

  The Hansens lived in a Cape Cod set back twenty yards from the street behind a screen of pine. The mailbox was at the head of the driveway. Courtney and I removed the letters and brochures that had accumulated and piled them neatly to one side of the door.

  It was past midnight and there was no moon but this made little difference to us and we could see clearly through the windows into the house.

  Ralph was a mixed breed and not a large dog. He was five years old. He knew that Courtney and I were there and he stood up on his hind legs and placed his front paws on the windowsill in order to return our stare.

  Through the kitchen window we saw that his food and his water dishes were overturned and empty. He’d made messes on the floor since he hadn’t been walked.

  “He’s getting hungry,” Courtney said.

  “Just a little. He’s been well fed.”

  Ralph began barking. It was only a warning bark and not yet a desperate one.

  “Be quiet,” I told him. “No one can hear you.”

  We visited the following night and the night after. Each time we found further evidence that hunger and thirst were beginning to affect Ralph.

  He was a smart dog and understood that the refrigerator held food. But he wasn’t smart enough to open the door himself although scratch marks in the enamel indicated that he’d tried. Somehow he’d gotten into the pantry closet and tumbled cans around the kitchen. He’d chewed the labels into paste but hadn’t managed to get his teeth through the metal of the cans.

  Once again Ralph peered out at us through the window. He couldn’t understand why the Hansens had left him behind and why they weren’t feeding him. Nothing hurts worse than being betrayed by those you love. I looked directly into his eyes and saw in them a lot of anger and a little fear and the beginning of insanity.

  That’s what I like best. Most people assume animals don’t have awareness of their own mortality but this isn’t the case. They are as knowledgeable of death as any man or woman. They just can’t talk about it.

  We returned to our own house and Courtney went downstairs to fetch Sam while I sat on the couch beside Dad. Mom was across from us in the easy chair reading a supermarket tabloid. Courtney placed Sam on the coffee table while I dialed the motel the Hansens were staying at in Fort Lauderdale.

  “Hello?” Sam said in an adolescent voice. “Mrs. Hansen? It’s Barry Ost. No, no problem, I just wanted to let you know how Ralph is doing, that’s all. He’s a good dog. Yes, he’s been minding me. But he misses his family, though, I can tell. What? No, his appetite is Ok, it’s
only he looks sort of sad. All right. Sure, I’ll be glad to let him run around a little extra.”

  I switched off the phone and Sam began bouncing up and down on the table top and scattering knickknacks everywhere. “I like this,” he said. “I like this a lot.” He leaped on Courtney and pumped against her jeans until she unzipped the fly and slipped the pants down.

  “How long do you think it will take for the dog to die?” Mom asked.

  Ralph no longer barked. His muzzle was caked with dried blood from attempts at battering through the doors and windows of the house. He had eaten his own excrement off the floor. We stared at each other for hours through the glass pane separating us.

  Madness glazed his eyes. Madness and something else. Something I can never own myself but can only borrow temporarily in the pain of others. After all these centuries I still can’t put a name to it. But for the time being, I wasn’t bored.

  “Sam,” I said. “Go find a rat.”

  “Will do, Frank,” he answered. In the darkness his yellow eyes were luminous. “Then what? What’s next?”

  “Let it go in the Hansen’s kitchen.”

  “I get you, Frank. No problem.”

  A quarter hour later Ralph’s ears twitched. Sam had come up from his tunnel into the basement and opened the door just enough to let the rat through.

  It saw the dog and scurried away but Ralph was faster. His teeth closed around its neck before it could squeal.

  Ralph ate the rat in three hurried gulps. I calculated there was enough meat and juice in the rodent to keep the dog alive another day or so without taking the edge off his hunger and thirst. I didn’t want him too weak. And now he knew how to kill.

  The Hansens were due home from Florida on Saturday morning. Dad and I set up our telescope at the living room window with one end poking through the drawn curtains. I focused it on the Hansens’ front door and coupled a video recorder to the eyepiece. I also connected the recorder to the television so that we could all watch.

  “They’re here,” Courtney said. Mom switched the TV from a cartoon channel to the video feed. Dad refilled his glass with vodka and sat next to her on the couch while Sam and Courtney squeezed in on either side.

  The telescope had a clear view of the Hansens getting out of their station wagon. They were tanned and looked rested. Mrs. Hansen unlocked the front door and entered the house.

  We could hear her screaming despite the distance. She staggered back and stumbled to the ground with Ralph at her throat. Mr. Hansen kicked at the dog but that only encouraged Ralph to attack him, too.

  “Now, Frank?” Sam asked. “Is it time yet?”

  “Another minute,” I replied. “No hurry.”

  Erik tried to wrestle the dog off his father but Ralph lacerated his arm and he staggered away without having accomplished much of anything. Mrs. Hansen died.

  I took Dad’s pistol and ran outside. Ralph was busy chewing on Mr. Hansen and he didn’t notice my arrival until I was squatting before him and we were eye to eye.

  Ralph knew who I was. He hated me. But by now he was insane with grief and rage and he hated himself as much as he hated the owners who had left him alone to starve.

  Ralph wanted to die. Instead I crippled him. He lay there an hour until a patrolman thought to use the humane killer.

  No one understood why Barry Ost didn’t feed Ralph or believed his explanation that Mr. Hansen phoned to say his services weren’t needed. Particularly in light of his call to Fort Lauderdale.

  Since he was underage, however, he only served a year in juvenile detention. The civil suit against his parents for wrongful death is ongoing.

  For a month we watched the video every night after the evening news while sharing a bowl of popcorn.

  “I like it, Frank,” Sam repeated. “It’s my favorite.”

  Courtney blew a bubble until it burst loudly.

  Personally I best remember the look in Ralph’s eyes as he lay paralyzed. For a while it was as if I was alive myself although that, of course, is forever beyond me.

  Eventually repetition sapped our interest in the video and we placed the DVD in the closet along with the others.

  I was bored again. I’m sitting here on the porch with Mom and we can hear Courtney and Dad and Sam grunting inside. Maybe I’ll join them.

  It’s something to do.

  ###

  Sometimes I Almost Feel Like a Real Human Being

  Courtney became best friends with Mary Beth in order to learn her secrets. But she didn’t discover the most important one. It was Sam who found that out. He crawled from his basement tunnel and began bouncing excitedly. Dirt showered everywhere like water off a wet dog.

  “I know it, I know it,” he said.

  “Know what?” I asked.

  “What she did, Frank. What Mary Beth did.”

  Even when he stands upright, Sam’s head barely brushes my knee. It is as round as a pumpkin and disproportionately large for his body. His eyes are the shape and color of egg yolks and his mouth is crammed with broad flat teeth. Sam has many talents. He can mimic any sound he hears. And his sense of smell is extraordinary. Perhaps this is because his nose is so immense that the tip actually touches his chin.

  “What did Mary Beth do?”

  Except for the corner where Sam had dug the entrance to his tunnel, most of the basement is finished. The walls are paneled with fake wood veneer and the floor is covered with plastic tiles that imitate real brick. Against one wall are a washer and dryer and a cabinet of laundry supplies. Against the other is the old couch on which I was sprawled. I was bored. I’m always bored. Sometimes it seems like I've been bored for centuries. My whole entire life.

  Sam didn’t answer directly. He isn’t very smart and he has trouble holding onto a line of thought.

  “I was hungry, Frank. Really, really hungry. And this big old rat, he was too fast. I didn’t catch him until he was inside Mary Beth’s house.”

  Sam’s tunnels lead everywhere across the neighborhood. There’s not a home he doesn’t have access to for at least a half mile in every direction.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “He was nice and juicy.”

  “Not the rat, Sam. Mary Beth.”

  “Oh, her. Well, I knew what was up right away. The stink was that strong, Frank. Even you could smell it.”

  “Smell what, Sam?”

  “Mary Beth. She’s pregnant.”

  Courtney said, “I can’t believe she didn’t tell me. I mean, what are best friends for?”

  We were sitting at the kitchen table having a breakfast of cereal and toast and orange juice. We had to be at school in half an hour. Courtney was wearing jeans and a tight knit shirt without a collar. She was chewing gum and eating at the same time. I couldn’t figure out how she managed not to swallow the gum. In many ways Courtney is as talented as Sam.

  “Maybe Mary Beth doesn’t know herself,” I said.

  “Get real, Frank. Of course she knows. She has to. Sam says she’s in her sixth month.”

  “Almost too late for an abortion,” I said.

  “Mary Beth wouldn’t have one anyway. They’re Catholics.”

  “Who’s the father?”

  “Brad Vogel. Has to be. They’ve been going steady since eighth grade. But Mary Beth says they haven’t gone all the way.”

  “Maybe she was lying.”

  “No, I don’t think so. There must be some other explanation.”

  “It’s been two thousand years since the last immaculate conception.”

  “Don’t remind me, Frank.”

  Dad joined us in the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee from the pot warming on the countertop. Dad’s in software development. He used to be in armaments but he got out of that business. He was dressed for work in his usual gray pinstripe suit and black wingtip shoes with the built up right heel that prevents most people from noticing his limp. If they do, he tells them he had polio when he was a kid. This is not the truth. Dad’s always been l
ame.

  He asked, “What are you two looking so serious about?”

  “My friend, Mary Beth, is pregnant,” Courtney answered.

  “So what do you have in mind?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Courtney answered.

  “I’m thinking about it,” I said.

  Brad Vogel was seventeen but seemed younger. He was into computer gaming and since there is little I can’t do with electronics it was easy to impress him with my expertise. We went to his house after school and settled down with a couple bags of chips before his computer and took turns playing death matches on-line.

  “I don’t think they’ve had sex,” I told Courtney. “What I suspect happened is they were doing some heavy petting and accidentally got a little too close. I don’t believe he even knows she’s pregnant.”

  “How do you suppose he’ll react to the news?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  We carried the telephone to the basement and explained to Sam what we wanted. His grin was so wide that it almost split his head in half. I dialed the number since he has stubby claws instead of real fingers.

  “Mrs. Vogel?” Sam said in an adolescent female voice. “Yes, it’s Mary Beth. I’m fine, thank you. Is Brad there? Sure, I’ll hold. Brad? Of course, it’s me. How can you ask if something’s the matter? Yes, I’m crying. We have to talk, Brad. Yes, now. I’m pregnant, Brad. Of course, I’m sure. Don’t be stupid. Who do you think? Half an hour. I’ll leave the porch door open.”

  I clicked off the receiver and Sam said: “That was fun, Frank. Real fun. I did good, didn’t I?”

  I dialed Mary Beth’s number and gave the phone back to Sam. His voice was indistinguishable from Brad Vogel’s.

  “Hi, Mary Beth, it’s me. Well, I’m OK, but there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask. No, no, nothing like that, it’s what you haven’t told me…. Please, don’t start. I can’t bear to hear you crying. Yes, that’s better. We’ll talk. No, no one else knows. It’s just I noticed you were gaining weight. All right. I’ll be over. Leave the porch door open.”