Sins of the Father

**Language and Violence**

“Sins of the Father”

When they crossed the state border, a wobbling street sign with decaying letters welcomed them to New Hampshire. Cracks lined the empty highway. The guardrails were bent or absent. The thought of driving off the road and tumbling down the mountain ate at Joseph. He gripped the steering wheel, disappointed in himself that he already missed the sounds of the subways cars and bright lights of the skyscrapers and the immediate urgency and chaos of the city. He cursed beneath his breath and rubbed the small of his back.

             “I offered to drive,” Helen said, pulling her cellphone from the pocket of her whitewashed blue jeans.

             “Then we’d never make it,” Joseph said.

             “We’d be there by now if you hadn’t missed the turn as we drove out of Boston,” Helen said.

A voice broke through the static on the radio. The scratchy voice of an older woman spoke with a pitch that made it sound as though she’d done a few too many weather reports. At least you could understand what she was saying:

             Strange sightings reported near the Willard Brook State Forest.  Residents are advised to stay inside. Only travel if you must.

             The radio went back to static. The clock read 1:02 AM. Helen scrolled through images on her phone of fancy clothes and fancy shoes and fancy bracelets and other fancy shit they couldn’t afford. How much time can you really spend staring at the damn phone? He thought.     

             “We going to be there soon?” Helen said.

             “If you’d stop shopping for a minutes and look at the GPS on your phone.”

             “Oh get off your high horse about my damn phone. Otherwise I’ll start on how your always at work and never home since – ”

             “Don’t start that shit. Don’t say it. I’m warning you. We told each other we wouldn’t talk about it. That’s what the therapist said.”

             “I can’t help it. What happened. It makes me so angry. Still. God Dammit Joseph. Life was almost easier when I only had to visit you once a week in prison.”

             Joseph slammed his fist on the leather steering wheel. His foot pressed on the pedal. The car gained speed and blood rushed with anger through his body. The engine rumbled. Just fucking leave it, he wanted to say to her. You don’t know the guilt. You don’t know the guilt at all.

             When the car reached 120mph he slowed down. His ears popped as they continued to drive up toward the mountain. The GPS told them they’d be there in twenty minutes. Twenty minutes to a prescribed week away from the job and the life and the grind. But that’s what Joseph had had for the last three years. He wanted things to go back to the way they were. He wanted to redo the mistakes he’d made. He wanted another shot to prove himself to Helen, even if it was too late for Charlotte.

             They turned off the highway and onto a gravel road. The gravel rumbled and the car rocked. The thick tree line consumed the light from the moon and stars, and the trees grew thicker and longer. Branches danced in darkness.

But as they drove the trees changed. A sick feeling erupted in Joseph’s stomach. Perhaps it was the Swedish fish or beef jerky he’d eaten on the way. Maybe the stress of the three years in prison, and lifetime of hell he promised himself after what happened to Charlotte made his sick.

The sound of the gravel against the tires inexplicably grew quiet. The trees were slumped over. Disintegrating. And through the trees, the outline of a thin jaw and rotting teeth appeared. Joseph slammed on the breaks.

             “You’re stopping?”

             Joseph’s chest tightened and his breath shortened. Fear consumed his body. Conquered his mind. 

             “The hell is wrong with you?”

             “Get off your phone for two seconds and look outside.”

             “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

             Joseph turned off the radio. Flashed the high beams into the woods. Leaned toward the windshield.

             “Can we just get going? The house is just up ahead and I’m exhausted. I’m sure it was nothing.” 

             Joseph pressed on the accelerator. Helen was probably right. She was right about most things. It was probably nothing.

             The cabin sat snug at the end of the gravel road. The porch was freshly painted, though the stairs to porch were uneven and weeds dominated the entrance. Toys and old clothes sat in the yard, and an above ground swimming pool was covered in leaves. The screen door creaked as Joseph followed Helen to the threshold. The house smelled of store-brand air freshener.

             “This looks different than what I booked in the booked,” Helen said.

             Joseph brought the rest of the bags in from the car and dropped them in the bedroom just to the left of the front door. By the time the rest of the bags were in the house, the rain barraged roof and the large window that overlooked the tree line.

             Helen pulled a bottle of wine from the cooler and poured herself a glass. She sat down on the couch and put her feet on the coffee table. She grabbed the tv remote that had fallen on the floor and clicked its buttons. Nothing happened.

Watching Helen was a though he was seeing what life had been like when he was locked up. She had grown used to not having him around, and now that he was back she had no idea how to handle that.

Joseph walked up behind her, placed his thick hands on her freckle shoulders. He smelled her hair, consuming the perfume that she wore when they had met twenty years ago in High School.

             He peered down her shirt as he rubbed her shoulders. Her breast’s pushed through her white shirt though perhaps not as much as they did in her early twenties. He remembered the excitement of touching her for the first time. Convinced that he would tell her to stop but he never did, only pressing his hands harder and harder on breasts. Now, even after two kids, he still loved the way she looked. Watching a woman raise a child, he knew there is nothing more beautiful than that.

             She lifted her hand off his shoulder. Turned toward him, and chugged the bottle of wine. “Going to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

             Joseph’s heart plummeted. He watched as she retreated to the bedroom, wondering how he was ever going to get her to forgive him for what happened. Perhaps it is too late. Clearly he wasn’t meant to be a father and maybe he was never meant to be a husband either. 

             The couch was hard on Joseph’s back as he sat down. He closed his eyes and laid back. The sounds of the prison doors locking him in for the night, and the cries of other inmates screaming through their sound proof cells rocked him to sleep. The urge to get out and fix his life had eaten away at him as he sat in his cell for the past three years. And now that he was back home, he wondered if it was too late. And he thought about the night that Charlotte died when they were coming home from the mall. The way the rain sounded just like it did now.

             Joseph opened the door to the bedroom. Helen lay down with a book resting on her chest. The bedside lights were on but she appeared fast asleep. He put the book back on the bedside table, flicked the lights off, and then went outside.

             He walked until his shoes were covered with mud and his shirt was so thick it stuck to his skin. Cold water seeped through his toes and drenched his socks. The rain was so deafening he couldn’t hear himself speak. Stars lit up the sky. He wondered if Charlotte was watching him. He wondered if Helen even cared if he went out this late at night.

             When he reached the intersection the thought of turning around overcame him. Let’s just go home, he thought to himself. 

             A piercing scream filled the night. Joseph stopped moving. Held his breath. Looked to his left and then his right. Nothing there. The branches were still and there was no sign of movement. Perhaps it was Helen that screamed, but no, that scream was too guttural for any human. Ahead of him, in the tree line, a hand flickered in the moonlight, wrapped itself around a tree.

             Before he could turn back around, back to Helen and back to his marriage and back to trying to make better what remained of his life, the figure sprinted out of the tree line. The figure was so fast. It’s body so slender. Joseph couldn’t tell what raced after him. Too human to be an animal. Too deformed to be fully human.

             Joseph fell to his knees. His head face planted onto a hard rock. He hit the ground and his vision turned black. He tried to grip the forest floor, but nothing stopped his momentum toward the woods. The sound of the wet drool and lips smacking and warm breath made it hard to hear anything else.

             He fingernails clenched dirt and rock and twigs as the creature pulled him deeper into the forest. A sharp pain pulled at his legs. A snap echoed near his feet. At the first he thought it might be a branch, but then, as the air left his lungs, he saw that one of the bones in his legs had protruded through his skin.

             Deeper and deeper, it pulled him into the woods. Until the stars and the moon were replaced by the sickening trees and the only noise came from the heavy breathing of the thing behind him. His hands and arms were sliced open. Blood dripped from his nose and ears.

When he looked back, the creature was gone, and he saw only a little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes.

             “Why didn’t you protect me Daddy?” Charlotte said.

             Joseph rubbed his eyes. This couldn’t be her. Impossible. Perhaps he’d had a concussion. Perhaps he was hallucinating. Perhaps he blacked out or died. His skull was soft and the pain in his leg kept him from speaking without grinding his teeth or wincing every few seconds.

             “I was so scared on that night we drove home Dad. I knew you and Mom were mad at each other that night.” She wore a yellow dress and a Cross around her neck. The same Cross that was now bloodstained and resting around Joseph’s neck.”

             “I was sick back then,” Joseph said. “I was angry. I was bitter I wasn’t more for you. Then I made it so much worse. I shouldn’t have gotten in that car with how much I’d drank that night. And you paid for my mistakes.”

             Charlotte took two steps toward Joseph. She wore the sneakers Joseph had saved up for her by working overtime at the docks. And on his day off from the shipyard he took her to Chuck e Cheese while Helen was still at work. The shoes were polished and he could hear Charlotte giggling as tried them on in the store all those years ago.”

             “I know you tried Daddy. Life doesn’t end up the way we want it sometimes.”

             “I think about you every day.”

             Charlotte walked closer. She placed her hand on Joseph’s face. Despite the tenderness of her skin, her hands felt rough and thick. But he didn’t care. He looked into her eyes. Pressed his face into her hand and smiled.

             “I’m lonely now Daddy. Don’t you want to stay with me?”

             “Of course I want to stay with you.”

             She placed her other hand on his face. The air around himsoured. The bright green that he had fallen in love with faded, turning gray then to black. The pain in his legs which had momentarily subsided came back, pulling him into a pit of pure pain.

             “I need to go. I need to get back to your Mother.”

             “Don’t you love me Daddy? Stay with me. Please. I’m so lonely here.”

             She squeezed harder on Joseph’s face. Joseph pulled at both her wrists, but her grip only tightened. As she squeezed, the blonde hair fell from her head. Her eyes widened and her smile, filled with perfectly white teeth only moments ago, burst with blood.

             “Don’t go back to that bitch,” Charlotte said, the voice now low and guttural.

             Joseph ripped the wrists from his head. He felt for a rock on the forest floor. Found one, and with all his strength he landed the rock on Charlotte’s head. Only it was clear it wasn’t Charlotte. But some creature that belonged to this forest or to another world.

             The creature fell back. Joseph tried to stand, but as he did felt another snap in his leg. He fell to his knees, right next to the creature. The hair and the white teeth on the ground, along with the yellow dress. 

             In the distance, he could hear Helen’s voice. In a moment, he would try stand up, and apologize to her. Apologize for his mistake and tell Helen that he loved her and that this had been the hardest time in his life.

             But before he could do that, he turned toward the creature, which was screaming in pain and struggling to move.. He mounted the creature, grabbed the blood stained rock, and pummeled it until his arm turned sore and his back ached.

             Then the light from Helen’s flashlight found him.

             “Are you alright?” Helen said.

             “Better now,” Joseph said.