Lord Loss (3 page)

“Be good for your aunt,” Mom says, tweaking the hairs on my fringe.

“Enjoy the ballet,” I reply, smiling hollowly.

Mom hugs me, then kisses me. I can't remember the last time she kissed me. There's something desperate about it.

“I love you, Grubitsch!” she croaks, almost sobbing.

If I hadn't already known something was very, very wrong, the dread in her voice would have tipped me off. Prepared for it, I'm able to grin and flip back at her, Humphrey Bogart style, “Love you too, shweetheart.”

Mom drives away. I think she's crying.

“Make yourself comfy in the living room,” Aunt Kate simpers. “I'll fix a nice pot of tea for us. It's almost time for the news.”

I make an excuse after the news. Sore stomach — need to rest. Aunt Kate makes me gulp down two large spoons of cod liver oil, then sends me up to bed.

I wait five minutes, until I hear Frank Sinatra crooning — no-date Kate loves Ol' Blue Eyes and always manages to find him on the radio. When I hear her singing along to some corny ballad, I slip downstairs and out the front door.

I don't know what's going on, but now that I know I'm not set to go toes-up, I'm determined to see it through with them. I don't care what sort of a mess they're in. I won't let Mom, Dad, and Gret freeze me out, no matter how bad it is. We're a family. We should face things together. That's what Mom and Dad always taught me.

Padding through the streets, covering the four miles home as quickly as I can. They could be anywhere, but I'll start with the house. If I don't find them there, I'll look for clues to where they might be.

I think of Dad saying he's scared. Mom trembling as she kissed me. Gret's voice when she was on the stairs. My stomach tightens with fear. I ignore it, jog at a steady pace, and try spitting the taste of cod liver oil out of my mouth.

Home. I spot a chink of light in Mom and Dad's bedroom, where the curtains just fail to meet. It doesn't mean they're in — Mom always leaves a light on to deter burglars. I slip around the back and peer through the garage window. The car's parked inside. So they're here. This is where it all kicks off. Whatever “it” is.

I creep up to the back door. Crouch, poke the dog flap open, listen for sounds. None. I was eight when our last dog died. Mom said she was never allowing another one inside the house — they always got killed on the roads and she was sick of burying them. Every few months, Dad says he must board over the dog flap or get a new door, but he never has. I think he's still secretly hoping she'll change her mind. Dad loves dogs.

When I was a baby, I could crawl through the flap. Mom had to keep me tied to the kitchen table to stop me sneaking out of the house when she wasn't looking. Much too big for it now, so I fish under the pyramid-shaped stone to the left of the door and locate the spare key.

The kitchen's cold. It shouldn't be — the sun's been shining all day and it's a nice warm night — but it's like standing in a refrigerator aisle in a supermarket.

I creep to the hall door and stop, again listening for sounds. None.

Leaving the kitchen, I check the TV room, Mom's fancily decorated living room — off-limits to Gret and me except on special occasions — and Dad's study. Empty. All as cold as the kitchen.

Coming out of the study, I notice something strange and do a double-take. There's a chess board in one corner. Dad's prize chess set. The pieces are based on characters from the King Arthur legends. Hand-carved by some famous craftsman in the nineteenth century. Cost a fortune. Dad never told Mom the exact price — never dared.

I walk to the board. Carved out of marble, four inches thick. I played a game with Dad on its smooth surface just a few weeks ago. Now it's scarred by deep, ugly gouges. Almost like fingernail scratches — except no human could drag their nails through solid marble. And all the carefully crafted pieces are missing. The board's bare.

Up the stairs. Sweating nervously. Fingers clenched tight. My breath comes out as mist before my eyes. Part of me wants to turn tail and run. I shouldn't be here. I don't
need
to be here. Nobody would know if I backed up and …

I flash back to Gret's face after the rat guts prank. Her tears. Her pain. Her smile when she gave me the Brazil jersey. We fight all the time, but I love her deep down. And not that deep either.

I'm not going to leave her alone with Mom and Dad to face whatever trouble they're in. Like I told myself earlier — we're a family. Dad's always said families should pull together and fight as a team. I want to be part of this — even though I don't know what “this” is, even though Mom and Dad did all they could to keep me out of “this,” even though “this” terrifies me senseless.

The landing. Not as cold as downstairs. I try my bedroom, then Gret's. Empty. Very warm. The chess pieces on Gret's board are also missing. Mine haven't been taken, but they lie scattered on the floor and my board has been smashed to splinters.

I edge closer to Mom and Dad's room. I've known all along that this is where they must be. Delaying the moment of truth. Gret likes to call me a coward when she wants to hurt me. Big as I am, I've always gone out of my way to avoid fights. I used to think (
fear
) she might be right. Each step I take towards my parents' bedroom proves to my surprise that she was wrong.

The door feels red hot, as though a fire is burning behind it. I press an ear to the wood — if I hear the crackle of flames, I'll race straight to the phone and dial the emergency number. But there's no crackle. No smoke. Just deep, heavy breathing … and a curious dripping sound.

My hand's on the doorknob. My fingers won't move. I keep my ear pressed to the wood, waiting … praying. A tear trickles from my left eye. It dries on my cheek from the heat.

Inside the room, somebody giggles — low, throaty, sadistic. Not Mom, Dad, or Gret. There's a ripping sound, followed by snaps and crunches.

My hand turns.

The door opens.

Hell is revealed.

DEMONS

B
LOOD
everywhere. Nightmarish splashes and gory pools. Wild streaks across the floor and walls.

Except the walls aren't walls. I'm surrounded on all four sides by
webs
. Millions of strands, thicker than my arm, some connecting in orderly designs, others running chaotically apart. Many of the strands are stained with blood. Behind the layer of webs, more layers — banks of them stretching back as far as I can see. Infinite.

My eyes snap from the walls. I make quick, mental thumbnails of other details. Numb. Functioning like a machine.

The dripping sound — a body hanging upside down from the webby ceiling in the center of the room. No head. Blood drops to the floor from the gaping red O of the neck. Even without the head, I recognize him.

“
DAD!
” I scream, and the cry almost rips my vocal chords apart.

To my left, an obscene creature spins round and snarls. It has the body of a very large dog, the head of a crocodile. Beneath it, motionless — Mom. Or what's left of her.

A dreadful howl to my right. Gret! Sitting on the floor, staring at me, weaving sideways, her face white, except where it's smeared with blood. I start to call to her. She half-turns, and I realize that she's been split in two. Something's behind her, in the cavity at the back, moving her like a hand puppet.

The “something” pushes Gret away. It's a child, but no child of this world. It has the body of a three-year-old, with a head much larger than any normal person's. Pale green skin. No eyes — a small ball of fire flickers in each of its empty sockets. No hair — yet its head is alive with movement. As the hell-child advances, I see that the objects on its head are cockroaches. Living. Feeding on its rotten flesh.

The crocodile-dog moves away from Mom and also closes in on me, exchanging glances with the monstrous child, who's narrowing the gap.

I can't move. Fear has seized me completely. I look from Mom to Dad to Gret. All red. All dead.

Impossible! This isn't happening! A bad dream — it
must
be!

But even in my very worst nightmare, I never imagined anything like this. I know that it's real, simply because it's too awful not to be.

The creatures are almost upon me. The croc-dog growls hungrily. The child grins ghoulishly and raises its hands — there are mouths in both its palms, small, full of sharp teeth. No tongues.

“Oh dear,” someone says, and the creatures stop within spitting distance. “What have we here?”

A man slides out from behind a clump of webby strands. Thin. Pale red skin, misshapen, lumpy, as though made out of colored dough. His hands are mangled, bones sticking out of the skin, one finger melting into another. Bald. Strange eyes — no white, just a dark red iris and an even darker pupil. There's a gaping, jagged hole in the left side of his chest. I can look clean through it. Inside the hole — snakes. Dozens of tiny, hissing, coiled serpents, with long curved fangs.

The hell-child shrieks and reaches towards me. The teeth in its small mouths are eagerly snapping open and shut.

“Stop, Artery,” the man — the
monster
— says commandingly, and steps towards me. No … he doesn't step … he
glides
. He has no feet. The lumpy flesh of his lower legs ends in sharp strips that don't touch the floor. He's hovering in the air.

The croc-dog barks savagely, its reptilian eyes alive with hunger and hate.

“Hold, Vein,” the monster orders. He advances to within touching distance of me. Stops and studies me with his unnatural red eyes. He has a small mouth. White lips. He looks sad — the saddest creature I've ever seen.

“You are Grubitsch,” he says morosely. “The last of the Gradys. You should not be here. Your parents wished to spare you this heartache. Why did you come?”

I can't answer. My body isn't my own, except my eyes, which don't stop roaming and analyzing, even though I want them to — easier to shut off completely and black everything out.

The hell-child makes a guttural sound and reaches for me again.

“Disobey me at your peril, Artery,” the monster says softly. The barbaric baby drops its hands and shuffles backwards, the fire in its eyes dimming. The croc-dog retreats too. Both keep their sights on me.

“Such sadness,” the monster sighs, and there's genuine pity in his tone. “Parents — dead. Sister — dead. All alone in the world. Face to face with demons. No idea who we are or why we're here.” He pauses, and doubt crosses his expression. “You
don't
know, do you, Grubitsch? Nobody ever explained, or told you the story of lonely Lord Loss?”

I still can't answer, but he reads the ignorance in my eyes and smiles thinly, painfully. “I thought not,” he says. “They sought to protect you from the cruelties of the world. Good, loving parents. You'll miss them, Grubitsch — but not for long.” The creatures to my left and right make sick, chuckling sounds. “Your sorrow shall be short-lived. Within minutes I'll set my familiars upon you and all will soon finish. There will be pain — great pain — but then the total peace of the beyond. Death will come as a blessing, Grubitsch. You will welcome it in the end — as your parents and sister did.”

The monster drifts around me. I realize he has no nose, just two large holes above his upper lip. He sniffs as he passes, and I somehow understand that he's smelling my fear.

“Poor Grubitsch,” he murmurs, stopping in front of me again. This close, I can see that his red skin is broken by tiny cracks, seeping with drops of blood. I also notice several appendages beneath his arms — three on either side, folded around his stomach. They look like thin, extra arms, though they might just be oddly molded layers of flesh.

“Wh-wh … what … are … you?” I moan, forcing the words out between my chattering teeth.

“The beginning and end of your greatest sorrows,” the monster replies. He says it plainly — not a boast.

“Mu-Mom?” I gasp. “Dad? Gr-Gr … Gr …”

“Gone,” he whispers, shaking his head, blood oozing from the cracks in his neck. “Remember them, Grubitsch. Recall the golden memories. Cherish them in these, your final moments. Cry for them, Grubitsch. Give me your tears.”

He smiles eagerly and his right hand reaches for my face. He brushes his mashed-together fingers across my left cheek, just beneath my eye, as though trying to charm tears from me.

The touch of his skin — moist, tough, sticky — repels me. Without thinking. I turn my back on the hell of my parents' bedroom and run. Behind me, the monster chuckles darkly, clears his throat, and says, “Vein. Artery. He is yours.”

With vile, vicious howls of delight, the creatures give chase.

The landing. Growls and grinding teeth getting closer every second. Almost upon me. My legs slip. I sprawl to the floor. Something flies overhead and collides with the wall at the top of the stairs — the croc-dog, Vein.

A tiny hand snags on my left ankle. Artery's teeth close on the cuffs of my jeans. I pull away instinctively. Ripping — a long strip of material torn clean away. No damage to my leg. Artery rolls backwards, choking on the denim.

Vein scrambles to its feet, shaking its elongated crocodile's head. My eyes fix on its legs. They don't end in dog's paws, but in tiny human hands, with long, blood-stained, splintered nails — a woman's.

I wriggle past Vein on my stomach and drag myself down the stairs, gasping with terror. Out of the corner of my eye I spy Artery spitting out the denim, jumping to his feet, rushing after me.

Vein crouches at the top of the stairs, reptilian eyes furious, readying itself —
herself
— to pounce. Just as she leaps, Artery crashes into her. Vein yelps as her companion accidentally crushes her against the wall. Artery wails like a baby, kicks Vein out of the way, and totters down the stairs in pursuit of me.

My hands hit floor. I lurch to my feet and start for the front door. I've a good lead on Artery, who's still on the stairs. I'm going to make it! A few more strides and …

Something brushes between my legs at an incredible speed. There's a sharp clattering sound. The door shakes. At its base, Artery rights himself and grins at me. The grotesque hell-child is rubbing his right shoulder, where he collided with the door. The fire in his eyes burns brighter than ever. His mouth is wide and twisted. No tongue — just a gaping, blood-red maw.