Other terrors, p.13
Other Terrors, page 13
She thrusts downward, rushing air fights her webbing, and at last her wings catch the wind. Nose-turned-snout turns upward, and she shoots from the yard, past the trees.
Toward the stars.
Once she gets going, flight becomes easy. Wind rushes around her crest, and she tilts her head in time with her wings to shift direction. She doesn’t know if that’s necessary, but the steering feels right. Lush trees bristle beneath her.
With air rushing around her earholes, every sound from the world below dims in the night. There’s a peace here she hasn’t felt in—ever? She can’t be sure, but it feels good and right to fly. Like she was meant for it.
A familiar screech pierces the darkness. She turns and twists toward the clouds, and now she sees that the wind carries many riders. Winged shadows slash across the corn-yellow moon. She isn’t as alone as her parents have made her feel. She screeches back, not even sure what she’s saying, and the calls bounce across the sky in the greatest song she’s ever heard.
Maybe this does get better from here.
An hour passes before she thinks of her parents again. She’s exhausted and could really use a snack and rest. Home slides beneath her talons, the rooftop trying to catch her, and she lands harder than she meant to. Practice will make perfect. A chittering noise bubbles up from chest to throat. Is that laughter? She doesn’t know, but it feels as right as flying.
She glides from rooftop to porch and is about to jimmy around the screen door when the back door behind it swings open, a rectangle of light breaking the darkness.
Dad’s silhouette carves the light, and a grave smile paints his face. “We were worried,” he says.
The screen door crashes behind Krissy, and she knuckle-walks onto the kitchen tiles, where a chemical stink coats the air.
Mom’s awake, too, much to Krissy’s surprise. She holds a glass measuring cup over a metal pan. “Hey there, sweetie,” she says, jostling the pan. “We have fish. You like fish nowadays, right? We haven’t been fair about what you’re going through, but we want to fix that. Don’t we?” She says this last question to Dad.
He nods, but his smile shows no cheer, no supportiveness. He’s a grim-faced statue tonight. Something’s wrong.
Hard to tell if Mom knows it. She smiles like it hurts to let her lips touch, her teeth filled with happy promises. She holds the pan out toward Krissy, arms stretched to their limit as if she’s afraid to let her daughter get too close. A whole catfish lies inside, drenched in what must be cooking oil. Must be.
“Dig in,” Mom almost sings.
Krissy looks to Dad, who nods again. Her fish-craving stomach dances with joy, but her thoughts hesitate. She wonders exactly what happens to the other kids who’ve finished turning. Are they taken by the government? Do they run away?
Or have their parents done something unthinkable?
Krissy begins to retreat, but Dad slides behind her. One flat, weathered palm presses between her shoulder blades; the other encircles her narrow neck in thick fingers. “We’re sorry,” he says.
“So sorry,” Mom echoes. She seems to mean it, there are tears in her eyes, but she carries the pan close now. “Eat the fish, sweetie.” Her voice fills with a mournful lilt, her betrayal of the deepest and final kind, a solution to their daughter-turned-problem.
Krissy flaps her wings and sends the air billowing through the kitchen. Mom grabs the fish up in her bare hands and lets the pan clatter. The oil doesn’t smell like water and fish-stink—it wears that chemical smell.
“Open up, sweetie,” Mom says. The fish dangles closer.
“Krissy, it’s mercy,” Dad says, fingers clambering toward her snout.
Mercy for who? Not for her, not when she’s caught the wind and found the night. Mercy for them, then. Her family has turned into a dark egg, and now a rancid evil hatches behind Mom’s eyes. She presses the fish against Krissy’s teeth. The chemical taste trickles onto her tongue, as does the fish’s meat. Her stomach orders her to take it, hungry like never before.
Behind her, the screen door crashes onto the porch, torn from its hinges, and wood splinters from the back door. Dad releases his grip, and Krissy feels him spin around. The catfish flops from Mom’s hands and smacks wet against the kitchen tiles.
Dad: “Who are you?”
Mom, her voice cracking: “Another one?”
Glass shatters in the living room, the picture window bursting inward. A blanket writhes on the carpet, as if deciding on its own that Krissy’s parents’ sins must be seen, but then it shakes free of a crested head, toothy snout, and great leathery wings.
Another one. Another like Krissy.
A window cracks apart in one of the bedrooms, and two more kids-turned-pterosaur swoop into the living room through the picture window. Others follow from the bedroom hallway. Despite their wingspan, their upper limbs fold neatly against their torsos, letting them squeeze into the kitchen, snouts aimed at Krissy’s parents. A pterodactyl screech bursts up one throat.
Krissy can’t discern its entire meaning, but no matter what else, it’s a song for her, and she answers. She returned home alone, trouble come to roost, where her parents tried to nourish her in the worst way. They thought she would always be alone. Would die alone.
But these other changed adolescents are birds of a leathery feather. Whatever angry magic swirls inside her likewise swirls inside them. Her parents have blotted up the windows for too long and forgotten that birds have flocks.
And for some birds, their flock is called a murder.
They rush at Mom and Dad, their prehistoric screeches drowning out human screams. Krissy isn’t much help, but the others make quick and bloody work. Not because they’re were-dactyls or true pterosaurs. Not because they can. They’re quick because they’re a flock of shared experiences, and they’ve had practice in their own houses, each forced to break free of some terrible eggshell the way Krissy has to break free tonight.
But she doesn’t have to do it alone. She’s never really been alone.
When the kitchen clamor settles, the flock shuffles on wing-knuckles and feet into the living room, where the night’s mouth gapes wide with glassy teeth. The largest of them hops onto the picture windowsill, talons gripping tight. Wings catch the wind with ease of practice made perfect, and their downdraft gives the others a boost for thrusting themselves skyward. One by one, they glide up and away.
Krissy is the last to climb onto the windowsill. She looks to the stars and moon, where sibling shadows cut the night. Her talons crush brittle glass and brace to follow her flock toward seas and sunsets and mysterious futures. The turning begins in the feet and ends in the wings.
But the turning is just the start.
Help, I’m a Cop
by Nathan Carson
The first thing I remember is hearing laughter. I crack one eyelid to see who made the sound, but the late-summer sun is hot and blinding. The ground under my back is rocky, harsh. My parched lips are sealed; I split them to say, “Help, I’m a cop.”
More laughter.
My right arm hurts. Can’t even feel my hand aside from a distant burning itch. Someone kicks dirt in my face. I close my mouth, teeth now coated in a fine dry layer. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter and fade out again.
It is Halloween 1990. I am five years old. At my request, my mother has sawed a Nerf football in half so that I can trick-or-treat as Dolly Parton. She gets me out of the house before my father can comment on my blond wig and lipstick.
“Randy!” my mother calls. It is four months later. I am in front of the television watching a striped puppet snake uncurl into a flute on Sesame Street.
My parents are wrestling fans. They named me Randy, but a macho man I am not. Not yet, anyway.
“Daddy wants to watch the news.” I know better than to protest. The channel changes. I smell his Marlboro. He sits in his faded recliner. I climb onto the crumb-covered couch, idly digging my hand beneath the cushions in search of change. Normally the news is all bright colors and moving graphics. I especially like the weather report. Tonight’s broadcast is dark and blurry. A Black man lies on the ground in front of a white car. He is surrounded by police with batons.
“Why are they beating him?” I ask. “Because,” my father says, “he’s a criminal.”
“Randy Newman? Like the singer?” asks Mr. Coryell. He is my gym teacher. I am eight years old. “Numan,” I say. “Like Gary Numan.” “Hmm, never heard of him,” says Mr. Coryell.
I am the smallest boy in my grade. Mr. Coryell has perfect sandy-brown hair. His body muscles make him look like an action figure. If you put him in a movie I would beg my parents to take me to see it. He sees me looking at him, follows my gaze to his tight athletic shorts. When class is over he holds me back.
“Numan.” I like how he says my name. “Come to my office.” I follow him. Once inside, he shuts the door. The calendar behind his desk features women in bikinis. They look like weird insects to me.
“I saw the way you were looking at me, boy,” he says. “You think I’m . . . handsome?” I look around. There is no one in the room but him and me. I nod my head yes without having to speak the word.
He runs his hands down the front of his chest, over his crotch, down his thighs. “Would you like to see me without these clothes, Randy?” I am sweating. I am curious. I didn’t know such things were allowed. My head is swimming. There is a deep craving I can feel but not visualize. I nod again.
He smacks me in the ear so hard that my head hits the wall.
“That’s what I thought!” yells Mr. Coryell. He follows with a list of slurs I’ve never heard before, but I make a mental note of each one. He tells me that he will keep our little chat a secret on one condition. I am ready to agree to anything.
The next day he holds me after class again. This time we walk together into the fields beside the school. It takes a few minutes but he finally finds what he’s looking for.
Dandelions wave in the breeze where we stand. There is a small bronze garter snake lounging in the grass. The pattern repeated down its body is beautiful. “See the snake?” he asks. I nod. “Catch it.”
I am afraid of snakes but more afraid of Mr. Coryell. When I hesitate too long he cuffs me in the same ear that still hurts from yesterday. Fast as I can, I grab the snake and hold it wriggling toward him.
“Well done, Numan. I hoped you had it in you. Now I want you to put it back down on the ground, very carefully, and stomp its head in.”
Gym class makes me feel sick for the rest of the school year.
Shadows stretch over my closed eyes. The sinking sun is still warm. My thirst is worse but I feel merciful drops of warm rain. I open my mouth to catch the drizzle. My body balks. A bubble in my throat rejects the salty brine. My head turns to spit and spew. I hear laughter again.
This time I open my eyes. The stream spatters against my cheek but gets interrupted by another fit of laughter. I turn my gaze up. Standing above me is a young white man, hair tied up in a man bun. He’s maybe twenty. A young Black man with facial tattoos and a top hat stands behind him, reaching around, holding the dick that just pissed on me. They stagger away in stitches of hilarity.
A pretty white girl who looks like a Hilton heiress crouches over me. She is wearing a long Native headdress and not much else. The look she gives me is what I’d call pity.
“You injured?” she asks. I squint, give the slightest nod. Her eyes dart back and forth to make sure no one is watching. From a coin purse necklace she draws out a small white pill and puts it in my mouth. When I don’t swallow she pinches my nose. That does it. “This will take the edge off, promise,” she says.
She pulls a wad of chewed gum from her mouth and puts it in mine. Then she rushes away into the sunset.
I spit out the flavorless gum and piss-soaked dirt then fade back out.
I am ten. My best friend Kyle meets me in the park closest to the Forest Theater in Forest Grove. His older brother works there and can sneak us in to see an R-rated movie. This week it is Lord of Illusions. I am both terrified and thrilled. The song “Magic Moments” sticks with me.
I am twelve. Kyle lies on my bed beneath my Erasure poster. I am kissing my way up his legs. I have just begun to unzip his pants when my father bursts into the room.
After I move schools, I never see Kyle again.
The sun is down but there are other lights now. Headlights, phone lights, fires. The voices and laughter now compete with music and fireworks and breaking bottles. A thumping beat echoes down the canyon and a crowd begins to cheer. The wind is warmer than the night it cloaks.
Some details begin to return. I’m lying in the dry bed of Wapato Lake. The sheriff sent me here because it’s almost twenty years to the day since 9/11. We got a tip that a big group of kids from Hillsboro were planning a rave. Gatherings of over a hundred people, even outdoors, have been outlawed for more than a year. And despite my best efforts, everyone on the force knows about my taste for electronic dance music.
Since my right arm won’t comply I reach around with my left. My holster is empty. Key ring and wallet are gone too. I remember driving here in a Washington County Ford Police Interceptor Utility Hybrid SUV. It was morning then. No signs of stage construction or criminal activity. The only life I could see was an old apple tree.
Dead fruit litters the ground around it. A few apples still cling to their branches, though. They are red Empires with collars of green retreating into their stems. I was planning to get breakfast at the little café in Gaston after my survey. But a bite of fresh fruit won’t spoil my appetite. I reach for the closest. Before I can connect the apple falls right into my hand . . . then bounces out and onto the ground, rolling under a hollow fallen tree just a few feet away.
On hands and knees I rock the log a bit and roll it over. On the soil beneath is a discarded medical mask, and a four-foot-long pit viper.
Out front of the shop a woman violently shakes a rattle over her baby carriage. Signs in the window advertise Faygo soda and Kratom. I catch a glimpse of her kid on my way in. I am eighteen. Unless I make some big life changes I will never have a child of my own.
The clerk inside says he can’t help me on-site but he gives me a number.
I keep jars of Muscle Milk on the windowsill of my apartment. An ammo box on the top shelf of my bedroom closet houses my syringes and steroids. In a few months I am still short but no longer feel small or weak.
At my gym a guy with iron cross tattoos tells me that he’s signing up for the police academy. I suppress my urge to ask him out. We fill out the paperwork together and celebrate with beers. Later in the evening I think he’s leaning in for a kiss. I purse my lips. He head-butts me hard enough to draw blood.
We are both accepted into the academy.
It is September 11, 2001. I am sixteen. I’m eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes and watching the second tower fall. I ask my father, “Who’s flying those planes?” He answers, “The worst people there are.”
It’s September 11, 2021. I am thirty-six. I have been a police officer in one state or another for over fifteen years. I am lying on the ground while young people dance and drink, smoke and shout all around me.
“That’s not just any pig,” says the shadow of one masked youth above me. “Don’t you recognize him?”
“How can you be sure he’s the same one?” asks another. He pries his mask up to take a long pull from a bottle of white wine.
“I watched the footage thirty times. I doxxed him, too. I know who this fucker is.”
I brace for the kick but just then the music stops.
“Hey,” says the other. “I think someone said the Man is ready. Almost time to get this Burn started.”
I am four. I am watching Nitro with my parents. Roddy Piper has just beaten Bret Hart and won his third United States Heavyweight Championship. We all cheer. Piper lives on a ranch in Gaston, Oregon. I think someday I will retire there.
A distant revving engine wakes me. Sound looms down from the promontory above the canyon. At the foot is a wooden structure shaped vaguely like a person. Someone props me up from behind and leans me against the fallen tree. Torchbearers light a wreath around the neck of the Man; a burning snake swallowing its tail. I watch as the Man catches fire next. Live drums and chants throb like a heartbeat as the flames lick higher. The moon in the sky is a waxing crescent, a silver sliver that spins in my vision like a boomerang, or a scythe.
Red and blue lights whirl in the night air as my SUV sails over the cliff edge and crashes down onto the Man. A thousand people scream in elation. Fireworks sail into the sky as the gas tank of my SUV ignites and explodes.
Thirteen months earlier I am packing. It’s the night before my team’s deployment in Portland. For two decades I have kept myself from searching Kyle on the internet. Tonight my resolve wavers. He is married with children. His profile picture is circled by a rainbow border. His husband is a public defender. I close my laptop and my suitcase and do not sleep.
I’m holding a shield behind the fence. Grenades flash amidst heavy gas and smoke. Commands chirp in my earpiece. We brace. A water bottle strikes my helmet. The fence comes down. We run as one into the crowd, swinging our batons. I connect with an uppercut swing and watch the rioter go down. As others drag her away, she pulls off her N-95 mask. I see the blood on her chin. She is Black, elderly. My baton arm hangs slack as she disappears into the mist.
My father’s tweet reads, “I’ve never been prouder.” The photo beneath has black borders at top and bottom in the shape of his phone screen. The picture, grabbed from a small online news site, is of me in full riot gear, smashing that woman in the face.
