Inside the house was all pink. All of it. There had been a blackout
and the painting was done by firelight so that no one could tell what
color it was. Not that it mattered what color it was, some days, you
couldn’t see your own fingers in front of your face. But Jumper knew
and he hated it. He was thinking about the pinkness of the walls,
the pinkness he knew was there but couldn’t see.
Outside on the lawn
just beyond the porch, gnomes stood at attention, scarecrows to the
cherubs on the sidewalk. They had followed their noses from wherever
they lived to Jumpers sidewalk where the smell of curry wafted from
the kitchen.
Jumper stepped out onto the porch. He told himself it
was because he could hear the cherubs mewling, but even he knew it
was the pink that drove him out every few hours. Since she’d died,
the pink had become unbearable. In the heavy moonlight, the
cherubs eyes glittered like fireflies in a calm summer night. Jumper stared out at the sea of baby fat and thought of the taste
of curried cherub. His rifle rested on his shoulder, pointed back
to the house. The sight of the rifle was still enough to move the
cherubs back a pace. Yet, a bigger one, about seven years old, staked
out the front of the pack eyeing the front door. Jumper moved
closer to the steps. Shooting cherubs, or anything for that matter,
was unpleasant business. But if the cherubs got into the house, into
the curry, and the wolves came –
Above, the clouds grumbled, interrupting
his thoughts. A heavy splat on his face made him lift the gun off
his shoulder. The cherubs scattered into the night, squealing, bare
feet splattering on the ground. They were gone but they would be back.
In a normal world he’d be no more than a wooden dog planted in the
grass to keep the geese away. Geese had to eat grass, and cherubs
had to have curry. The stench of curry permeated his every pore and
now that he was alone again, he tried to remember a time when the
smell of it ever pleased him. When his mind couldn’t find it, it moved
onto thinking of baby fat and curried cherub slowly turning, roasting,
on a spit.
Jumper was loosing his mind. But even worse than that,
he knew it. Light, sweet daylight would come in a few weeks and for
a few hours he might celebrate it. Worship the pink walls and all
the colors he could find. Sit out on the porch, free of curry, cherubs
and wolves and bask in the sun like a frolicking house pet. Then what?
He looked up at the clouds boiling in the moonlight and went inside.
He was getting wet and he had to sleep before the cherubs came back.
They
returned in less than three hours. They never set off the trip wires
anymore, but they didn’t have to, he never really slept anymore. Jumper
rose and snuffed the fire under the large vat in which curry water
simmered. He took his rifle and cables and pouches of curry. Outside
the cherubs mingled in diapers or shorts and t-shirts. They
followed him as he walked, marching in relative order. His rifle rested
on his shoulder as before, pointing behind him into their midst. If
they decided to rush him he wouldn’t have to turn around. Still, it
was risky business turning your back on a pack of cherubs. In the
right (moon)light, they were worse than wolves and if you ran, they
chased.
Jumper took the road he had taken many times before, times
when he still loved the smell of curry. When he was child, he rode
around town on a moped with jumper cables on his shoulder and a battery
on the back. By the time he was seventeen, he had made enough money
selling power to buy his own pickup and drive around with his jumper
cables on the passenger seat and to pay for most of state college.
Three years through his electrical engineering degree, when the lights
went out, he lighted his and his mothers house with his car, then
with any car he could find or steal. When the oil ran out, they sat
in the darkness until his mother started to go crazy. He stared at
the cables when she started painting, too afraid to leave her and
find some power. Now she was gone, bless her soul, and there was no
reason not to do what he did best. Walking now, with his rifle on
one shoulder, and his jumper cables on the other, he felt closer to
himself than he had since she died two months ago. He was going to
get some light.
It was some five miles – his legs told him – before
he ran into anyone. A portly white fellow, shaggy hair, early forties
maybe. These days, you couldn’t tell a persons disposition by the
direction the skin around their eyes crinkled, or how their mouths
turned when they looked at you. The only way to judge a man was the
by the shine in his eyes. By now, Jumper considered himself a good
judge of eye shine. This one had a good natured look about him. The
moon was good, not quite full, but heavy, and the clouds were still.
A good night for walking. A good night for running into a good natured
soul. The man carried a rifle too, and he lifted it slightly
when he saw Jumper and the cherubs. He made wary eye contact
as he passed by, the scent of marjoram clung to him like moonlight
to the clouds. Jumper called out to him.
“Hey, Friend.”
The man
stopped and raised his rifle a slight. His pointed his body towards
Jumper but his eyes followed the cherubs.
“Do you mind some company?
I’ll walk you back if you walk me up.” Jumper said.
The cherubs stood
further back from them than before. They murmured amongst themselves
evidently discussing the marjoram man by the looks and the pointing.
“Where
you headed?” The marjoram man said – with a heavy accent that sounded
familiar to Jumper – still looking at the cherubs.
“They wont bother
us. They don’t like marjoram.”
“Where you headed?”
“To the impound,
about three miles west. What do you say?”
“What about the mix?”
Jumper
had to think. Mixing spices was about the worst thing you could do.
You never quite knew what was going to come out of the darkness unless
someone had tried it before. And usually when they tried, they failed.
In brutal fashion.
“I don’t know. But I’m sure it’ll be special.”
Maybe
it was the tone of his voice, Jumper didn’t know, but the marjoram
man relaxed his rifle hand and smiled at him.
“Alright.”
Jumper felt
his smile muscles grinding into position. It had been a while and
it felt good. He extended his hand to the marjoram man.
“Jumper.”
The
marjoram man shook it firmly.
“Dick Richardson. Or Rich Dickerson.
I don’t remember anymore. You can call me Rich-Rich, Dick-Dick, Rich-Dick,
Dick-Rich, Rich-Dickie, or Richie-Dick.” He finished with flourish.
Jumper
felt the muscles in his cheeks grinding again. The man was a little
crazy, but probably harmless.
“Rich it is.”
“Wish I was. But I ain’t.”
They
went west, the sounds of their laughter echoing off the stillness
of the night. The cherubs followed the curry, but the marjoram kept
them a comfortable distance back.
They passed the empty houses of
the suburbs, where trees on either side, bent by breeze, staked their
path into the industrial section. Here, it was the shadows of street
light posts that guided them.
“So you favor the curry.” Rich said.
“It
was my mom. She couldn’t take the bats or anything else. They drove
her crazy.”
Rich fingered the pouch on his belt. “So you have kin?
Must be nice.”
“No. The cherubs got in once, then the wolves came.
She’s gone.”
“I’m sorry to hear that friend.”
Jumper shook his head
no. No need to be sorry. She had let the cherubs in. Two days after
she painted the whole damn house pink by torch light, a feisty cherub
made it past the gnomes and the trip wires onto the porch and she
had opened the door with no rifle, called it baby, and asked it if
it was hungry. All thirty of them had swarmed the house and coated
their baby fat cheeks with curry before he got the rifle off his shoulder.
He managed to splatter two of them over the porch floor before the
wolves came, but it didn’t matter. You never shot at anything till
it came time to die. For all the spices and rifles, blood was the
one spice that brought every single one of the devils creatures out
of the night into the darkness of your doorstep.
“How about you? Do
you have anyone?” Jumper said.
“I took up with a lady once, over on
Baker. She was a thyme woman. Possums the size of tigers, and moths
the size of possums. Bats I can do. But possums? Hell no. I had to
let her go.”
Jumper looked at the rifle in Rich’s hands and didn’t
ask what ‘let her go’ meant. He knew if they both lifted their shirts,
they could both compare scars till daylight and not find a winner.
Rich continued.
“Can’t stay with too many folks, you know? Everybody
got their own little crazy, things they can’t stand to be around,
things they can’t take – might even not have known it before the darkness.
And with all that spice mixed up? Can’t stay with nobody for too long.
You know how it goes.”
Jumper did know. Parsley brought insects – spiders,
flies, ants , crickets, and roaches. Marjoram for bats. Thyme for
moths and possums, and garlic brought vampire rats. Chives called
the birds of the sky, Sage the burrowers below. Paprika called the
bears, Bay for the vultures, Curry, cherubs heard. All
of them larger than life and even more grotesque, and if you cooked
them in their own spice, the wolves finished the rest. Shoot once,
shoot twice, spill their blood never see another night.
“Can’t stay
with nobody, not even your own mama.”
Jumper felt a surge of protectiveness.
“I
can’t take animals myself.”
“What do you call them then?” Rich cocked
his head at the cherubs who taken that time to fight over a scrap
of something or other. Their language was nothing any man could
decipher and their squeals and grunts filled the air. “They ain’t
people, that’s for sure.”
Jumper thought of the human stains on his
porch. Stains that would not come out no matter how he scrubbed.
They
sure bleed like people.
“Huh?”
“Where do you think they go?”
“Go?”
“Like
to eat and sleep. Somebody is feeding them. How else did they get
so damn fat?”
Rich gave him a tired look of understanding and suspicion.
“I
heard about this one guy up north he bagged and roasted one in his
backyard. Had a whole cookout for himself cause no one would eat it
with him. He just kept eating it and eating it till it was done.”
“What
happed to him?”
“He used curry. And he didn’t drain the blood. Wolves
got him. Finished him before all the other things even got there.”
Rich shook his head. “Hm, hm, hm, you curry people are a special
breed, I’ll tell you. Special breed. My point is – this guy – he said
were supposed to be eating them. That’s why they’re made.”
“Made.”
“Yeah.
According to this fellow, they crank them out of a mold or something
at Disney World. That’s where they go to eat and sleep and stuff.”
“Disney
world.”
“Un huh.”
“You need power for that.”
“To eat and sleep?”
“For
a mold. You need power to run a mold.”
“That’s where its at, friend.
Disney world. All the power you need for all the cherubs you can eat.”
“You’re
serious.”
“Don’t tell me you never heard the stories. Where you been,
boy? I mean, that cherub-eating dude was crazy, but everybody knows
something’s rotten at the
“But why
cherubs? What good are they?”
“For eatin’. They’re good for eatin’.”
Rich laughed a hearty laugh. “Just don’t cook them up in curry. Anything
but curry.”
Rich laughed and laughed.
He laughed until the eagles cries
cloaked the moonlight and a family pregnant raccoons waddled out of
the brush. chased them down the road. Once they ran, the chase was
on. The eagles from above, the raccoons from below, and the cherubs
swift on their tail. At the intersection, Jumper cut right as Rich
went in the other direction, he could hear the splatter of bare feet
and the patter of smaller ones just behind them. The winged darkness
cleared long enough for him to fire and miss. As he dodged into
the impound lot, he heard a shot. There may have been a scream as
well. He hopped onto the hood of a 1972 Chevy impala and from it,
zigzagged to the back of the lot. The only sound was the pounding
of his heart, louder than his footsteps on the bridge of cars and
the splatter and patter of little feet.
Now he was back in the pink
house with nothing to do but think about the pink and what Rich had
said. Special breed. That was what he was. Him and all the other curry
people. Rich was right. You never heard of anyone eating a spicy bat
steak, or garlic rat stir fry. Inasmuch as the cherubs wanted, needed
the curry, curry people needed, wanted cherubs. He didn’t know what
it was, genetics, or just plain crazy, but it was his destiny. And
anyway, he knew he couldn’t survive another daylight followed by darkness,
couldn’t survive the cherubs on his lawn, wouldn’t survive the stench
of curry. The trip to the impound had been a waste of energy
– his cables still lay impotent at his feet – but perhaps not a waste
of time. Jumper stood in the small yard space behind the house, just
before the spot where he buried her. There hadn’t been a whole lot
to bury, just some scraps, but he’d gathered them the best he could,
made a hole in the ground, and said some words the way he thought
she would like, then he’d covered the hole and chased the cherubs
off. Now as he stood before the spot where what was left of her lay,
they lounged on the lawn where they always were, jostling and speaking
amongst themselves. His blood boiled. Save that energy for something
we can use, she would say. And he had. He had all the energy he needed
now. Stored up from all the times he never threw a punch or cursed
someone. From all the times he never suffered getting out to stay
with her. From all the times he didn’t dare complain about not being
able to go to Disney World. He had all the energy he could use. He
hoped Rich made it to where he was going.
Take a deep breath,
step out onto the porch, rifle in hand just like always. Walk quickly
into them, snatch one up. They wont expect it. The curly haired one
is the fattest and slowest of the bunch. Turn, up the stairs and into
the door. Click. Slide the bolt. He – It hasn’t even started crying
yet.
A rusty tram rolled up to the station. The cherubs flew
in climbing the seats and poles as it continued its creaky journey.
Jumper peered into the tracks. Too dark. Inside the tram, a speaker
sputtered to life jauntily croaking out It’s a small world after all
and then stopped.
Prepare the meat, drain the blood, slice the
neck, hold it steady. But the other way around. It’ll be like a chicken.
Loose your grip and the body flops around spraying blood everywhere.
The colder the room, the better. There is no light, no ice, a closed
room will have to do. The stench of blood will seem unbearable, the
quiet will add to the aura of desperation. Especially in the
heat. Drain fast into any container with a cover. Do not tarry. This
is only the beginning. Drain as best you can – no drops on the floor.
Cover it up. Now you’re ready for the spices.
The tram made its
final stop outside the
The
spices are all here. There’s marjoram, persimmons, ginger, mint, chives,
sage, paprika, curry, thyme, cumin, basil and of course curry. Choose
wisely, but choose curry cause there’s no percentage in the rest.
No hope for change, for choice of life or death, or for freedom.
“Friend.”
Jumper said.
A man robbed in white sat at the center of a long table,
dining on a meal of cooked quivering meat. He was flanked by twelve,
six cherubs on either side, and they ate quietly on fine china with
silverware. The man looked up from his meal and smiled. He had blinding
teeth, blue eyes, blond hair, and a soft glow.
The cables slithered
off his shoulder to the floor. Jumper raised and cocked his rifle.
“It’s
you.” It was Jesus.
“Now, now, friend. Put that down, please.
No guns at the supper table.”
“Who are you?”
“Why don’t you put that
rifle down and have something to eat. We have steak? Garnished anyway
you like. A1, ketchup, curry? The man held out a forkful of quivering
meat.”
Jumper heaved. The cherubs ate on as if he wasn’t there. “Who
are you and what have you done.”
“Sit. Eat. We can talk all you want
on full bellies. I think I have some wine around here somewhere. You
like red?”
Jumper bore down on his rifle. “You’d do well to know I
want no part of that. You’d do better to start talking.”
Jesus laughed.
“You would walk into my Kingdom, deny me and threaten me? Look around.
If I snap my fingers, what do you think happens to you? Sit.”
Jumper
sat opposite the man.
Jesus rose from his seat, took a wine glass from
the table and cupped it in both hands. “Dear father, I thank you for
this guest. I thank you for this meal, blood of my blood, and flesh
of my flesh and the stranger to become family, heir to all that is
this great land. Amen.” He sat and looked at jumper. “Now eat up before
it gets cold.”
Jumper hopped in his chair from the recoil just as the
rifle blast split the cherub on Jesus’ right into two. “Snap your
fingers. I dare you.”
Jesus jumped from his chair. “Whoa. That was
you-too you just shot. What did you do that for? Jesus.” He reached
under his white jerkin, unwrapped a string of Christmas lights from
around his torso, and unceremoniously dropped them on the floor.
“I’m
supposed to believe you care? You’re the one whose eating them.”
“Eating
them? Eating them? Are you crazy?
“Aren’t you?”
Jesus ripped the tiara
off his head. “Maybe a little, who isn’t these days, but not enough
to eat kids. We were just having some fun playing a little dress up.
It’s rabbit meat – here, have a taste.”
Jumper looked at the cherubs.
They didn’t look like they were having fun. You-too’s upper
body was still sliding down the chair.
“You think they’re kids? You
must be crazy.”
“You’re one to talk.” Jesus paced the length of his
side of the table in a huff. “You’re the one who just shot a child
in cold blood, with nary a sweat on your brow. What does that say
about you?”
“They are not children.” Jumper lowered his voice. “They
aren’t. They follow curry, just like the animals do. They hunt – they’ll
do whatever they have to – to get it. Just like all the other animals.
Have ever you ever walked with curry? Do that for a few hours, then
tell me they’re children.”
“Look – .”
“Jumper.”
“Daniel. Look Jumper.
I’ve been here from the beginning. I’ve been locked up in this fortress
for about three years now. Six months in, they started coming, sometimes
several a day. I took them in, fed them, and dressed them. These are
real people. You have no idea the horrors they’ve been through, walking
here from all over. There a little strange, damaged I suppose, but
like I said, who isn’t. They go out sometimes, but they always come
back to eat and sleep. They have a slight affinity for curry, but
they’ll eat anything I give them.”
“So there’s no mold.”
“Mold?”
“Nevermind.”
“I
don’t know what you’re after, but we’re happy here. They give me a
small measure of company, and I take care of them as best I can.”
“And
how long do you think that’s going to last?”
“What do you mean?”
“How
much power do you have?”
“Enough for a while, I think. I don’t know
how to check.”
“And the carousel?”
“That thing? The horses have motion
sensors in them. It’s a nuisance but I don’t know how to shut
it down.”
“Why don’t you unplug it?”
“I never thought about that. You
must think I’m a fool.”
“No. I think you’re crazy, but if you show
me the breaker box, I can shut it down for you.”
Daniel smiled. “Sure.
Let me get these guys cleaned up first.”
Daniel ushered the eleven
remaining off the table, and walked them to the door at the other
end of the dining room. Jumper looked around the place. He took the
cables from the floor. You-too’s head had fallen back against the
chair. In the corner by the door, there were twelve pairs of
small shoes with socks neatly tucked into them.
“Come with me.” Daniel
poked his head into the dining room.
Jumper walked around the table
past you-too, to the door.
You-too’s mouth was open and on his tongue,
underneath a cut of meat was the unmistakable –.
“It’s a funny thing,
crazy.” Daniel said. “Everyone is scared of it, but you have lived
until you’ve lived crazy. You know it. I can tell. I see it in your
eyes. You look like a caged beast. All your senses are engaged, all
your muscles are coiled, ready to act. Your mind turns three times
faster than before. You shot a kid in the middle of a conversation,
all the while noticing everything. Does that seem right to you? A
sane person couldn’t do that. You think a sane person could do that?
You are crazy, you are, you are.”
Daniel turned to him and laughed.
Jumper shot him in the face.
The box wasn’t hard to find, but there
was already clawing at the door. Jumper rounded the eleven remaining
into the corner. He attached his cables to live wires in the box and
flipped the switch. In the darkness, eleven cherubs followed the curry
and came to him. He dropped his rifle, closed his fist on the jaws
of his jumper cables, and gathered all the children unto him.
Roast
it slowly, By now, the wolves have come, they are at the door, clawing,
but there is plenty of time. If you’ve done it right, there is enough
time to get the fine china, silverware and napkins from the cupboard
and set the table. A large knife will do just fine, as will a cut
of the rump. And when you are done, when the expertly garnished succulent
flesh has settled in a pool of red wine, flip the switch and there
will be light.
Author’s Bio:
Lola is an engineer by trade and
a dabbler by heart. She has been dabbling in writing for 2 years now,
and hopefully She'll dabble long enough to write a novel. She
enjoys scaring herself silly, white walls, pitch black nights, and
cocoa puffs.
