Page 242 of Rage

Attractions popped up at every turn, friendly smiles that never wavered. Everything was to the heart’s content. A manwith a painted smile appeared before him, and bowed in his oversized shoes and bright dress, presenting a goblet of milky drink. He didn’t have to take it to know it was chilled, and suddenly seeing the drink, he realized how parched he had been, and for so long. How refreshing the first gulp would be.

But what he’d done to deprive you made him hesitate. Why would the stories tell such untruths? He had vague memories of his childhood, and in it the same stories had been told to him nearly every night.

Run. Because The Traveling will bring nothing but sorrow. It will bring drought and famine. Rip children from their mother’s bosoms.

Here it was and it was nothing like the stories. He saw children in their parent’s arms, with bright smiles and full bellies. Some had painted faces much like the man still in front of him, patiently waiting for him to take his offering. It was too much, and so he shook his head at the refreshment, and meant to go on his way.

He stopped as pain from something dull and searing invaded his body. It robbed him of breath, blurred his vision until it left him sightless. In the dark he slowly lost command of his body as well. First it was his arms which fell to his sides, the Remington slipping from his fingers. He struggled to keep control but felt himself falling to his knees and tried to moan, but his voice was stolen as well.

His arms were brought over his head and gripped together and he was dragged for what had to be miles because pain could not last that long otherwise. The ground burned his skin and scraped it off slowly in bits. He wore his teeth into his lip to silence himself even though he had no voice to scream. For a moment, he abetted as he grew airborne..

The air stung his wounds, but the ground hurt more as he was dumped on what felt to be a wooden platform. Withouthis sight, he could simply guess. The air felt cooler here, and held a touch of damp. Even barely breathing, he could smell the rancidness, like rotten meat and curdled milk, and his stomach heaved.

There was no time to be sick because he heard the steps, not those of one by their lonesome, and not the two by two of dual companions. No this was an odd beat, and in the travails of nausea and fear, he could not for the life of him make it out.

Liquid splashed on his face, restoring his sight. He winced in the light and he wished he’d remained blind.

He’d heard the circus had freaks, but this was not worth a few pennies to throw on the stage and laugh at their misfortune. He’d empty his purse if it meant he could scour out his eyes.

A woman, or some semblance of, as big as three, waggled forth. She wore but her own skin, which hung upon her in layers like tallow from beef. Her face had no shape, neck and shoulders and chin melded together into one form, and on each step, veins barely contained under overstretched skin, threatened to burst and drown the whole world in blood.

He mustered the energy for a cough and a gasp and then a silent cry when what he had thought was this thing’s own flesh moved on either side of her chest. It was not one but two heads like the twins he’d heard about from the Orient. Each had their own malformed nose and a mouth of crooked chipped teeth; and onto their chins ran a line of drool he recognized as a familiar milky drink.

At this realization he became most violently ill. Thesethingshad beennursing.

Three sets of sunken eyes peered at him, and perhaps in the worst twist of all, the mouths stretched into simultaneous smiles. Haggard, they were. Creatures that would make monsters resign the designation and live out the rest of their days spreading the gospel instead. They had come for himfirst, knowing he was the one because he’d declined the offered libation at his worst state of thirst.

His hair was grabbed hard at the roots and his head bent back. Above him he glanced at a painted mouth. The odd beat resumed until the heat from the thing and the odor it produced were closer than before. He gagged as a finger entered his mouth to pry his jaw apart. He bit down on the foreign appendage but it was too late.

Hot milk was poured into his throat, thickly, languidly, ensuring he could taste the vile creamy sweetness coating his tastebuds. The painted man laughed til he cried while the liquid burned and bubbled on its way down.

“This one will grow up to be useful,” they said, the Grim Mother and Her Children and let him keep his wits but only as dreams. They were once daughters and in her need for control, The Mother had sewn them into herself and kept them alive with the poison she created. They squeezed her breasts dry and made certain he drank every drop until there was no more. On the final swallow his brain scrambled, memories became distant, but even then his thoughts were of nothing but you.

Many years later…

You stood at the borders of what used to be, a wilderness of skeletons, some tangible, some bones of the past. It wouldn’t be recognizable if you hadn’t held onto the memories and never let yourself forget.

You knew the empty shell of your homestead the second you saw it. Though the wood was but dry rot and the gabled roof pitched and sagged so low and sad to the ground, it would make anyone else mourn what was once there. Not you, the anger festered, feeding on the years that passed. You weren’t bitter, you were starved. You didn’t know for what but that deep hunger never left your spirit, never let you rest.

In those memories of hardship swam ones of cold spring waters in the creek and the boy that ran into them to avenge you from the rock that drew your blood.

You hadn’t married. Your heart closed the same day your fist had around nothing but dust. Dust you wore around your neck, bottled so you could never forget.

Your ma begged you to let go of him on her deathbed, your pa before her. They saw how you tortured yourself. What they thought was just puppy love was ripping you apart. But you couldn’t let go, not without one day coming back and pouring the damned dust onto that accursed land and giving him a proper goodbye.

And so here you were, standing where it began and ended. You weren’t scared, not that you’d admit. The stories said it never came to the same place twice, like lightning. But being here again with that hunger rumbling inside you, making your bones shake, how you wished it would strike a second time.

Every step you took around what was your old life cast you into a deeper gloom. Rumors plagued you throughout your new life of a lone family who escaped. They reached your ears but no one suspected. They didn’t want to believe it could be true. Loss was easier to handle if there was no other choice.

You walked and walked, seeing more relics of houses, trees and farms that skillful hands had built and planted.. A few cornstalks had been spared. They stood upright, dry and shriveled, no moisture in their veins to allow them to bend. One gentle breeze and they’d be, what else–dust.

The stillness sat heavy, and while your childhood had been hard, there had still beenlife. This was death, captured and preserved in a moment in time.

With the sun setting, you circled back. You might have hesitated, but then you picked yourself up and ascended the old rotted stairs of the porch and into your home. Everythingwas almost as you’d left it, save a few possessions, remnants of a ransack. You’d planned to explore but stopped short at the kitchen entrance, the old coal oven catching your eye. The iron was still black as obsidian; rust had not found its place there. But the door hung open and slightly askew, and in it you saw the spoiled remains of that sweet sugar pie.

And you screamed.

Screamed and screamed and screamed.

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