Companions in Ruin Page 6
“Bless you, child,” the man on the wall spoke in a soft, melodic voice. “You are truly precious in my sight. Go forth from here and spread the Word.”
Tammy rose slowly, carrying her boxes over to Jackson. “Your turn.”
“Have you gone completely mental?” Jackson said loudly, causing several customers to finally glance their way. “I know you don’t expect me go through that whole little song and dance.”
“You have to give Jesus what is due him. Jesus is Lord at the Discount Shoe Mart, after all.”
“Kudos to you, big sis. This has been a truly outstanding performance. Oscar worthy, I’d say. This prank will go down in legend, you have absolutely outdone yourself. But if you think for one second that I am going to kneel down and pledge my eternal devotion to some costumed shoe-store owner, you are even crazier than you’re acting.”
“Jackson, if you want the shoes, you have to do it.”
Jackson looked up at the man on the wall, and he was perversely pleased to see a frown of concern etched between his eyebrows. Taking a ten from his wallet and tossing it on the floor, Jackson said, “Hey Jesus, I appreciate the cheap shoes and all, and here’s my ten bucks, but that’s all your getting. Oh, on second thought, here’s another five. Consider it a tip for such a convincing performance.”
The other customers were starting to gather round, whispering among themselves. Some of them had expressions of abject terror on their faces. Tammy’s face had gone completely white, and she was backing away from Jackson as if he were a leper.
“My child,” the man on the wall said, commanding Jackson’s attention, “I will not be mocked in my own store.”
“What you gonna do, zap me with lightning? Come on, give it up, it’s been a fun little display but I’m over it now. You’re just pissing me off. I’m taking my shoes and going.”
The man on the wall looked down upon Jackson with such a look of sympathy that it was almost frightening, the way Jackson imagined a doctor looks down upon a patient that has no chance of survival. “My child, I once felt sorry that I had no shoes, but then I met a man who had no feet.”
Jackson opened his mouth to make a sarcastic retort, but then he felt himself losing his balance. He reached out to his sister for support but she shrank back even further, leaving him to topple to the floor. He pushed up on his elbows and stared down the length of his body. He saw the loafers he’d worn to the store sitting side by side on the floor, no longer on his feet.
Because he no longer had any feet.
It was impossible, and he reached down the length of his legs. They simply stopped at the ankles. There was no wound, no blood, the stumps covered over with smooth, rounded flesh. His feet had simply ceased to exist.
“Jackson, now look what you’ve gone and done,” Tammy said, her mouth scrunched up to one side, her I-can’t-believe-what-a-shithead-you-can-be expression. “Now I’m going to have to drag you out to the car.”
Jackson started screaming then, turning to those nearby, pleading for help. They just shook their heads sadly and turned away from him, resuming their shopping. He turned back to the man on the wall, professing his eternal devotion, anything to bring an end to this nightmare, but the man looked away from him and would not acknowledge his cries for mercy.
Jackson was still screaming when his sister grabbed him under the arms and started pulling him across the floor toward the exit. She’d gotten him halfway across the parking lot when he felt the world slipping away and sweet unconsciousness coming to claim him. Just before he passed out, he looked up and read those words one final time:
JESUS IS LORD AT THE DISCOUNT SHOE MART.
ANNIVERSARY
September 4, 2014
Randall spent half an hour picking out the perfect card. In the end, he chose one with fireworks on the front and inside it read, “You Make Everyday Seem Like the Fourth of July.” Simple, cheesy, but a perfect sentiment for the way Annie made him feel.
He also selected an assortment of cream-filled chocolates that came in a heart-shaped box. A bit cliché maybe, but sometimes the classics were the best. To that he added a single long-stemmed rose, yellow instead of red. Satisfied, he took his bounty to the register.
The middle-aged woman who checked him out smiled and winked at him. “For someone special?”
“Very special. Love of my life, actually.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“Today is our one-year anniversary.”
The woman’s face lit up as if it were her own anniversary. “How delightful. I’m sure she’s going to just love the gifts.”
“I hope so. Annie has brought so much joy into my life, and she puts up with a lot from me. I just want to make sure she knows how much she means to me, how much fuller my life has been since she came into it.”
“That’s just lovely,” the cashier said. “I hope this Annie realizes just how lucky she is.”
“Oh, I’m the lucky one, believe me.”
The woman reached out and touched one of Randall’s hands with her own and winked again. “My husband could take lessons from you.”
Randall jerked his hand back, suddenly uncomfortable. Was this woman flirting with him? When she knew he was devoted to another? Yes, he thought she was. Sickening, the way people played loose and fast with morality these days. Commitment and loyalty were archaic concepts, and people changed partners like a child’s game of musical chairs. Thank God Randall had found Annie.
“Happy anniversary,” the cashier said as she handed Randall his receipt. “And kiss that wife of yours for me.”
Randall said nothing, just took his purchases and left. He could have told the women that he and Annie weren’t married, that their commitment to one another went deeper than any ceremony or legal document, but it was really none of her business.
Out on the street, he turned to head for his car parked a half a block away, but something caught his attention and he paused. The side of the building was wallpapered with flyers and bulletins and advertisements. One in particular drew him toward it. A small smile curling his lips, he reached out and plucked the paper from the building. He folded it once and stuffed it in the bag with Annie’s treats.
***
The house was dark and quiet when Randall returned home. He lived so far out in the middle of nowhere, it took him a good twenty minutes to get to his isolated cabin from town. The stop at the store had put him behind schedule. Annie would probably have been expecting him home quite some time ago; he hoped she wouldn’t be too upset with him.
Tossing his keys onto the sofa, he made his way down the hall to the bedroom. He flipped on the light, and there was Annie. She was stretched out naked on the bed, waiting for him. What a seductress she was.
Her skin was slicked with a thin sheen of sweat, dirty from not having showered in so long. Her eyes stared out from between strands of her matted hair like those of a feral animal. The cuffs that secured her to the bedposts had rubbed her wrists raw, drawing blood, and apparently she had not been able to hold her bladder for the acrid stench of urine was thick in the room.
Ignoring all of this, Randall knelt next to the bed and pulled out the items he’d purchased earlier. “Happy anniversary, sweetheart. I got these things for you, to celebrate one year that we’ve been together.”
Annie tried to say something, but the words were muffled and unintelligible behind her gag.
“And look what else I got,” Randall said, pulling the paper he’d taken from the side of the store out of the bag and holding it out for Annie to see. The paper was yellowed and water-stained, but the picture it boasted of a bright smiling teenager was clear. Annie stared at the photocopied photograph for a moment then closed her eyes and turned her head away.
Randall looked down at the picture, running a finger lightly down the image. “I’m going to put it in my scrapbook. A memento, you know.”
Above the photograph that was almost unrecognizable from the girl handcuffed to the bed was
the bold word “MISSING”, and underneath, “Anne Rachel Kirkland, Last Seen September 4, 2013.”
PICK YOUR PATH
Ten-year-old Mattie Ketterman sat down on her bed and reached into her backpack. Her questing hand bypassed her Spelling book, her Math book, her History book, and went straight for the books she’d checked out from the school library. She had a lot of homework to do, but she’d get to it later. She wanted to escape in one of the fiction books, try to block out the sound of her father screaming at her mother downstairs. Screaming…and more.
Mattie had checked out three choose your own adventure books, and she picked one at random, titled Wish Fulfillment. She opened up to the first page and started reading. Like all books of this type, it was written in second-person present tense, as if she were the main character and the events were unfolding in real time.
You are sitting on your bed, listening to your parents argue downstairs. Every so often, the angry shouts are punctuated by the sound of flesh striking flesh and your mother crying out. You know what this means but try very hard not to think about it.
Gasping softly, Mattie looked up from the page. It was as if this book truly were written about her life, about this very moment in her life. But that was ridiculous. Surely there was nothing more at play here than coincidence. Shaking her head as if to dislodge such silly notions, Mattie read on.
You don’t like to admit it, but deep down you hate your father for the way he treats your mother. A part of you even hates your mother a little for allowing it to happen. But the majority of your hatred is reserved for your father alone, for the big bully that he is. You don’t realize it yet, but you have the power to stop him, the power to punish him for being such a brute. The choice is in your hands.
If you wish your father to live, turn to page 16. If you wish your father to die, turn to page 23.
Mattie didn’t even pause to think it over; after all, this was just a book. It wasn’t as if anything would really happen. She flipped the pages quickly until she got to page 23. There were only two words on the page, in big bold letters.
WISH GRANTED!
***
When Mattie and her mother got home from the funeral, Mattie went straight up to her room and closed the door. Her mother probably assumed she wanted to bury her face in her pillow and cry, but really she wanted to be alone to think about what had happened.
Sure, it could be happenstance that her father dropped dead of a massive coronary at the exact moment that Mattie had made the choice to kill her father in the library book, but it felt like more than that. It felt like she had made it happen, that she had chosen her father’s fate by turning to page 23. If that were the case, Mattie had murdered her father. So why did she feel so gleeful?
She lifted up her mattress and pulled out the copy of Wish Fulfillment. She had told the librarian at school that she’d lost the book and even mustered up some tears over it. The librarian, no doubt filled with sympathy due to the untimely passing of Mattie’s father, had told her it was okay and she wouldn’t even charge her a fine. So now the book was Mattie’s, and all the power it contained within its pages.
And she thought she could feel that power as she held the book in her hands, a thrumming energy radiating all the way up her arms. Crawling onto her bed, she opened the book to page 1 again, only the text had changed since the last time she’d read it. Oddly, she wasn’t all that surprised.
You are sitting on your bed, feeling pretty proud of yourself for getting rid of your father. No more listening to him scream or hit your mother, no more watching him get drunk in front of the TV in the middle of the afternoon, no more making excuses for why your friends can’t come over. You and your mother are free.
Of course, your life is still far from perfect. For one, your father left little savings behind and the funeral expenses ate up most of what there was. The house is in bad shape, your mother’s job as a cashier at the local Food Lion grocery store isn’t enough to pay the bills, and while you don’t like to think of yourself as petty you do worry what the other kids will say when you keep wearing the same clothes to school next year that you wore this year, even though they’ll be too small for you by then.
You find your mind turning to your grandmother, who is quite well off but stingy with her money. You are aware, even if only on a subconscious level, that with your mother being your grandmother’s only child, if something unfortunate were to happen to the old woman, your mother would likely inherit it all. Thus solving your financial woes.
If you wish your grandmother to live, turn to page 57. If you wish your grandmother to die, turn to page 8.
This time Mattie did pause. While it was true that her grandmother was a stingy woman, Mattie still loved her. She wasn’t a bad woman, not like Mattie’s father had been bad. If she turned to page 8, she would be all but signing her grandmother’s death certificate. She couldn’t do that…could she?
Mattie took a moment to look around at her room. Her mattress was older than she was, springs poking her in the back at night while she tried to sleep. The ceiling was water-stained and dripped in several spots when it rained. Her closet was full of thrift store and hand-me-down clothes. She knew her mother was putting on a brave front but was worried about making ends meet.
Then Mattie thought about her grandmother some more. The woman had to be at least 70 years old. She’d led a long life, a good life. Would it really be such a tragedy if she died?
With trembling hands, Mattie flipped to page 8.
WISH GRANTED!
***
Mattie slammed the door to her room, ignoring her mother’s calls from downstairs. Slinging her backpack onto the floor, Mattie felt so angry that she could just about explode. That horrid Mrs. Stevenson at school, she was just a wicked old witch.
Okay, so Mattie hadn’t done her homework, but there were special circumstances. She’d had two close relatives die within a week of each other. Shouldn’t that be taken into consideration, some leeway given? No, mean old Mrs. Stevenson had given Mattie detention anyway. It just wasn’t fair.
She retrieved Wish Fulfillment from under the mattress and sat Indian-style on top of the bed. She opened up to the beginning and started reading the new yet familiar story.
You are sitting on your bed, seething with rage. How could anyone be so unfeeling as to give detention to a girl who just murdered two members of her own family?
This gave Mattie pause, to see it put so baldly. Of course, she had thought something similar after her father, but with her grandmother she had tried to rationalize her actions so that she didn’t really view it as murder at all. She almost thought she detected a sarcastic tone to the text, if text could be said to have tone, but she was probably just imagining it.
All this year your teacher has been giving you a hard time. Nothing you do is ever good enough for her, and she seems to pick on you specifically more than any of the other kids in your class. Almost like she has it in for you.
You consider how great it would be to go to school and not have to see her cruel face every day. Maybe if Mrs. Stevenson was gone they’d replace her with someone nicer, someone who wouldn’t be such a witch to you. Maybe then you wouldn’t mind going to school.
You think how nice it would be if Mrs. Stevenson met with some kind of accident. You would be doing your entire class—and all future classes—a favor. You’d be a hero.
If you wish Mrs. Stevenson to live, turn to page 13. If you wish Mrs. Stevenson to die, turn to page 30.
Here Mattie paused longer than she did over her father but not as long as over her grandmother. Page 30 it was.
WISH GRANTED!
***
Mattie’s room was full of boxes. Her mother had decided with all the money that Mattie’s grandmother had left them, instead of fixing up this old house they would just move somewhere nicer in a better neighborhood. This was going to be their last night in this house.
Mattie was excited. She’d seen the new house and
it was beautiful, her room would be twice as big as this one, and there was a swimming pool in the back. And yet at the same time, she felt a little bit sad. She was going to miss this room, even the water stains on the ceiling. She’d lived here her entire life and it would be like leaving a part of herself behind.
She’d also be leaving behind all her friends at school. The new house was on the other side of town, in a different school district. Turned out if Mattie had only waited a few days, she’d have found out that she would be rid of Mrs. Stevenson without having to resort to page 30. But what was done was done.
It was late, and Mattie should have been long asleep, but her mind wouldn’t stop whirring, the gears creaking loudly in her ears. She was thinking about all the changes in her life since she’d taken Wish Fulfillment from the library. She had become the master of her own destiny, choosing what direction her life would take. She should be happy, and she was. Just not as happy as she thought she should have been. There was something beneath the happiness, a hollow feeling in her gut.
Turning on the lamp beside her bed, she reached under the mattress and pulled out the book. Propping herself up against the headboard, she started to read.
You are sitting on your bed, feeling empty but not knowing why. You have everything you thought you wanted, you have shaped your own future, but it still feels like a vital piece is missing.
Have you heard the saying, “Be careful what you wish for…”?
You have indeed gotten what you wanted, but at what price? Your soul, perhaps? It can be argued that your father deserved what he got; and while your grandmother didn’t deserve it, her life had been full and long; but your teacher, that was done out of pure spite and pettiness. That was an act of outright murder which no justification can wipe away.