Bad blood, p.1
Bad Blood, page 1
Bad Blood
The First in the
Cycle of the Aphotic World
Tobin Elliott
Copyright @ 2022 Tobin Elliott
Luminous Aphotica Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any process—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and Luminous Aphotica Publishing, except for brief quotations in a review.
Please purchase only authorized electronic editions from reliable retailers. In doing so, you support our authors and respect their rights.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these stories are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously.
ISBN 978-1-77826-290-6 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-77826-291-3 (ebook)
Cover Design by Camille Codling (Instagram: @codling.creations)
Interior Layout by Jennifer Dinsmore (jenniferdinsmoreeditorial.com)
The Aphotic Series
Bad Blood
Out For Blood
Blood Loss
Blood Pact
Blood Relations
Flesh and Blood
To my daughter Madison, who thought this book was about her. Thankfully, she was wrong.
To my son, Hunter, who could possibly have been the demon child who did bad things.
Thankfully, he didn’t.
And, of course, to my wife Karen,
who always reads this stuff, then gives me a weird, yet still somehow loving look.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to everyone in my life who keeps me sane. You are my family. My blood…
To Ryan and Lisa Hickey, and your incredible family. You’ve given me over two decades of unwavering friendship. I’ve never laughed so much, or for so long, with anyone else. When I’m down, you bring me up. When I’m up, you lift me higher. Because of your generosity, support, and friendship, my world is brighter and my life is better.
To my daughter Madison and my son Hunter, brilliant and beautiful kids both. You infuriate me, make me belly laugh, drive me batshit, fill me with pride. And both of you in your own unique ways have taught me the importance of leading by example. You’ve inspired me to be a better father. I love you more than you’ll ever know.
Finally, and most importantly, to Karen Elliott. My wife, my friend, my sparring partner, my sounding board, my shoulder to cry on, my friend to laugh with, my greatest critic and my biggest supporter. You stuck by me when you didn’t need to; you picked me up when I was down. You challenged me to be the person I never thought I could be. I am what I am today because of you. For all of this and so much more, I love you, and I am “…completely and perfectly and incandescently happy.”
Part One
Getting Odd
“Come child, you have heard the voices,
and all is well…”
The Crawling Chaos
H. P. Lovecraft
Chapter One
Summer 1975
Talia couldn’t help it. Alex made her frustrated.
Not that Talia was all that crazy about The Flintstones, but jeepers, it was the only good show on besides stupid news or stupid game shows or other stupid stuff. And when she would try to watch it, Alex, her stupid baby sister, would crawl over to the TV, pull herself up the front, and slap the screen. Every time Fred Flintstone showed up, she’d squeal, “Fed! Fed! Fed!” and slap the screen some more.
She was stupid.
Talia kept yelling at her. “Lex! Lex! Get outta the way!”
She wouldn’t dare call Alex stupid out loud, not with her mother in the other room making dinner. Mom would give her a good licking for that. Talia wasn’t really sure why it was called that because when her mom would pull down her pants and spank her bum, it sure never felt like licking to her.
So, she chose to say it quietly to herself. “Stupid Lex.”
And she was! The stupid kid couldn’t walk, couldn’t hardly talk, couldn’t even poop on the toilet, but Mom always seemed to play with her more and talk to her more and hold her more.
Talia was a whole lot older than Alex. This September, she would be going into the fourth grade. So she was smart and she knew she was getting too old for Mom to hold and stuff. But she still kind of wanted her to.
Instead of moving out of the way, Alex stood directly in front of the TV screen, stock-still, no longer squealing, but grasping the top of the set and mumbling away to herself in stupid baby talk. Talia got madder at her stupid sister.
Alex couldn’t do anything! She was so boring!
“Lex, you’re making me frust-cher-ated!” she said, trying to sound very adult-like. “Get outta the way, Booger!”
“Talia!” Her mother’s voice erupted from the other room. “No name-calling. You know she’s younger than you. You have to be patient with her.”
Yeah, she had to be patient with a stupid kid who didn’t know anything except how to poop her pants and block Fred Flintstone.
Alex was the reason Dad left.
So Talia hated her.
Which is why, when Alex still didn’t move, Talia decided to make her.
She slid as quietly as possible off the couch, but didn’t move far. She worked to get the right amount of exasperation in her voice—not enough to make her mom come running, but not too little either.
“Lex!” she said. “Will you please move?” Yup, that “please” in there was just right.
As soon as she finished saying it, she got up behind Alex. The stupid baby was patting the screen again, little snaps of static electricity sounding from beneath her hands as she squealed, “Fed! Fed!”
Talia brought her hand up to the back of Alex’s head, the feel of her baby-fine hair like the softest kitten, and snapped it forward, bouncing her sister’s face off the screen.
Alex turned around, looked at Talia searchingly for a second before her lower lip curled down and her face scrunched up. Talia watched with fascination as her eyes grew big, fat tears.
She had to time it just right.
Alex opened her mouth wide and sucked in a big breath, her little tummy distending with the effort, and let out a ferocious wail. Her face darkened to pink, and then to angry red.
“Oh my gosh, Lex!” Talia said. “Are you okay?” Then she wrapped her arms around the stupid Booger in a big, sisterly hug. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay.”
Mom came bounding around the corner, a dishcloth still in one hand. Her face was stern. “Talia! What did you do?”
She kept hugging the Booger. “I didn’t do nothing!” she said, projecting as much innocence and care as she could. “She was watching Fred Flintstone and she tripped or something and bonked her head on the TV!”
Alex was bawling, wracking sobs that shook like tremors through her whole body.
Mom came over and Talia instinctively backed off.
Talia watched her mother’s eyes grow wide. “Oh my god! Alex!” Talia looked over and saw the blood.
Oh jeez, she thought. There’s an awful lot of blood. Tons.
As Alex cried, it alternately dribbled down her chin onto her favourite Mickey Mouse shirt along with gobs of spit, or it sprayed outward onto her mother’s knees in a gross mist.
Shoot! Talia thought. I didn’t mean to do that! She just wanted the Booger to shut up.
Then she thought, Well, I guess that’s what she gets when she doesn’t listen.
The three of them stood frozen, then Alex lifted her arms for Mom to pick her up, which, of course, Mom did. She didn’t even care that she was getting blood all over herself. That’s all the Booger can do, Talia thought. But at least she can’t tell on me.
“Aw, sweetie, let’s get some ice, okay?” Mom said.
Her mom took Alex into the kitchen, cooing soft words in that high voice that she only used with her. The one that sounded like she was smiling even though she wasn’t.
Her mom hadn’t smiled much since Dad left.
Stupid Booger. All her stupid fault.
Talia looked back at the TV. The Flintstones was over now, and some other stupid show was on. Talia slapped at the pull switch on the TV to shut it off. The picture first flattened, then squeezed down to a tiny bright spot.
There was a spot of blood just to the left of the fading point of light. Talia touched her finger to it. The warmth from the screen seemed to travel through the blood and up her arm. She felt a small prickling in her scalp and thought, That blood is Alex’s. And I made it happen.
The prickling feeling grew, becoming more pleasurable. Talia closed her eyes and slowly, slowly, pulled her finger from the TV and put it in her mouth.
When she opened her eyes, seconds or minutes later, she saw something else.
Something that delighted her.
♦ ♦ ♦
That night, after all the screeching and yelling had stopped, after her mom had held an ice cube wrapped in a facecloth to Alex’s mouth, after dinner and baths and all that, Talia lay awake in bed, wrapped in warm bedclothes and cool, blue moonlight, her small night light offering just enough reassurance of safety.
Alex snored lightly in the crib across the room from her.
Talia reached down, squeezing her hand between the mattress and the box spring until she felt it. Then she pulled it out. She held the object up so that she could see it in th
She turned it over and over in her small fingers. So smooth. So shiny. Yet, it had a certain sharpness too. She scraped the edge of the thing along her fingers and felt it bump and catch against the ridges of her fingerprints.
It was hers now. A keepsake. A reminder that she was bigger than Alex. That she was smarter and stronger.
Talia fell asleep with Alex’s baby tooth in her hand, her little fist wrapped tightly around it.
She never relaxed her grip on it at any time throughout the long night.
Chapter Two
Summer 1975
Talia sat in her room—well, really it was hers and Alex’s, but it was more hers because she had been here first—trying to keep away from the Booger. They’d fought a lot recently and she didn’t want to get into any more trouble with Mom.
But it was hard to not fight with her. Sometimes she just wished Alex would go away so it would be just her and Mom. Maybe Dad would come back then.
Talia missed her dad a whole lot.
Before Alex came along, it was just the three of them. And Mom would help her when she took her bath and she’d play Barbies with her and sometimes she would even dress her up, with makeup and everything.
Dad would have tea parties with her and take her on the scary rides at the carnival, the ones that Mom was too scared to ride. Talia and her dad would always climb into the seats, making fun of Mom, who would be standing outside of the ride with a fist up to her mouth, looking as if she was going to poop herself. They wouldn’t ever tell her they made fun of her though. It was their little secret.
And Dad would also do her most favourite thing ever. Every night—well, every night until he started coming home real late—he would read her a story. Her favouritest of all had been The Wizard of Oz. She would giggle when he would make all the different voices, but it was his cackling, scary Wicked Witch voice that she liked best. He would poke her tummy while he read as if he was trying to scare her, but mostly it just tickled and she always giggled.
And then, when they were done reading, and it was time to go to sleep, that’s when her dad would shut off the light and they would wrestle, with Talia always trying to get an arm or leg out from under the covers while he frantically tried to keep her covered up. He would always huff and puff and pretend he was getting angry with her, but he never was. And when they finally settled down, he would tousle her hair and say, “Goodnight Poopypants.” Then he would lean down and kiss her cheek. She loved the whiskery feel of his face against hers and the smell of him. She always took a big, deep breath whenever he hugged her. And then he would say, “Sweet dreams, baby. I love you,” and he would just look at her, in the dark. He always looked kind of sad.
He did that every night.
But then Mom got pregnant and fat, and then she went to the hospital and they came home with stupid Alex.
After that, Dad didn’t always have time to read to her because sometimes he had to do something with Alex.
And most of the time he didn’t wrestle with her anymore—even when she begged him to. Instead, he just gave her a quick peck on the cheek and said, “G’night.”
He didn’t call her baby anymore, either.
And somehow, of all the things she missed, that was the worst.
Once Alex came home, it messed up everything. Talia always had to be quiet after school because Alex was napping. And she always had to watch TV with the sound so low that she couldn’t hardly hear it.
Once Alex came home, Dad started not coming home. When he did, him and Mom would fight all the time. Or else they wouldn’t talk at all, and then it seemed like the whole house was smaller and darker. She didn’t like it when they didn’t talk. Talia would always be extra quiet then, and extra good. She always thought she had done something bad and they’d gotten mad about it.
All she ever wanted to do when they acted like that was grab her mom’s hand and her dad’s hand and tell them to kiss and make the funny faces and the funny talk like they used to.
She’d thought about this a few times before Talia realized that it all seemed to start when Alex came along. So then she didn’t like Alex that much. Oh yeah, she was cute and all, and sometimes when she laughed with her big, gummy, goobery mouth, Talia couldn’t help but laugh too.
But mostly, she didn’t like Alex that much. And sometimes, Talia hated her.
When Dad left, and her mom had said that he had to go away for a while, Talia knew he was going forever because he took a lot of stuff with him. He even took his favourite stuff, like his golf clubs, and Talia knew when you took your favourite stuff it was because you were scared to leave it behind in case you never got to see it or play with it again, so that meant you weren’t coming back.
And she could tell when, after he had everything packed in the truck, he came back and tousled her hair and said, “Goodbye, Poopypants.” He didn’t just give her a kiss on the cheek then. He did that, but he hugged her and hugged her and hugged her. She felt his sandpapery whiskers on her face and smelled the good smell of him.
She breathed that good smell in, something in the back of her head telling her to pull it inside her, to hold it as long as she could and never forget that smell. And all the time she was trying to hold that smell of him, to lock down the memory of that smell, something fluttered in her chest. It felt awful.
Finally, he said, “I love you, baby. Be good for your mommy, okay?” Then he whispered something else, really low in her ear, that she couldn’t quite make out.
It wasn’t until he was in the truck and backing out of the driveway that she realized her cheek was all wet where he’d hugged her. She brought her hand to her cheek, swiped at the wetness, and looked at it.
Then she looked up and watched her dad drive away.
That’s when she started to cry, because she knew for sure that he wasn’t coming back, no matter what Mom said.
Because she figured out what he’d whispered to her.
He’d said, “I’m sorry. I can’t fix it.”
She didn’t know what he couldn’t fix, but she did know one thing.
She knew that it was Alex’s fault.
So now Talia avoided her, staying in her room if Alex was out in the living room, or going out into the living room if Alex was in their room.
But she was bored. Bored, bored, bored!
Sitting on her bed, she looked around the room, wanting something to capture her attention, but nothing did. Her stuffed animals, which her mom called “stuffies,” were all lined up on her bed, but she didn’t want to play with them. There were boxes of games in her closet, but she needed more than one person to play and Marcia wasn’t here yet and Mom was getting ready for work, so she couldn’t. She didn’t want to draw. She didn’t feel like going outside.
She thought about holding the tooth again, but she didn’t want her mom to catch her with it. That was her secret. No one could find out about it.
But just the thought of that tooth—that small, hard, shiny trophy—made a pleasant prickle across her scalp again. It was a pleasurable buzzing that relaxed her. She closed her eyes and enjoyed it.
Then she heard the doorbell chime.
That meant Marcia was here. Something to do!
She went out to greet Marcia and say goodbye to her mom.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Hey, Miz D!” Marcia Mayer said as she came through the front door. Alex scampered unsteadily toward her and Marcia scooped her up. “And aren’t you a big bundle of smiles today!” Marcia laughed at her gap-toothed grin and boinked her lightly on the nose and Alex giggled, then squirmed to get away, so she put her back down.
“Hold on, kiddo,” Marcia said. “Got something for ya.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a plush Dino the Dinosaur from The Flintstones. Alex squealed with delight, grabbed it, mumbled “thangoo” and jammed Dino’s head into her mouth, then scuttled off like an ungainly spider.
“Oh Marcia,” Diane said, “you shouldn’t have. You’re gonna spoil them.”
