The Cost of Madness

The Winston family is among the fairgoers, stepping gingerly through the mud. 

Matthew leads his wife and son to his favorite game of all.

"It's called the 'Wild Wild West,' Timmy. You're going to love it!" 

Matthew had fired guns since he was a little tyke, growing up on his father's ranch, catching vermin long before he applied for the police academy.   

A Ferris wheel stands against the sky like a gaudy bracelet. 

Minutes later, Matthew recognizes the familiar pop of a .22 caliber rifle. Mechanical ducks totter and creak across the back of the gallery, and the rifles crack and spit. 

"Step right up! Step right up, folks, test your skill, and win a prize," sang the shooting gallery man in an awkward black-and-white striped top hat. 

"What's your heart fixed on getting, young man?"

"I really want those big ones?" Replies Tim.

The pitchman pointed to small cars on a wire. 

"Shoot out the small red dot," he says. "You have five shots to do it, and you can take any prize in the house."

Matthew already has his tokens out.

"How much is it?"

"Four tokens per tube of shells! Take your chances now, sir! We got a line of winners today."

Matthew obliges. 

It's a pump rifle fastened to the counter by a chain. 

Matthew raises the rifle.

"The elbow rest is permitted."

"That won't be necessary."

Matthew swiftly fires all five rounds and lowers the weapon. 

"Let me have that big bear," he said.

When the card returned, you couldn't find red on it with a microscope.

The pitchman trollies a little cart down the wire, unpins it, and hands it to Matthew.

Matthew slaps another two dollars worth on the counter.

"What you want next, Timmy?"

When Matthew had won two bears, a tiger, and a small audience, the pitchman took the rifle away from him.

"That's it for you, buddy."

Hey," says Matthew. "You never said nothin' about how many times you could win."

"Thanks, Dad!" 

"Anything for you, son…"

"Okay, Matthew, you don't have to keep up the charade," mumbles Delilah.

"Ya know, Delilah…how about a little appreciation? There isn't a man in this state who could have hit those shots with such ease."

"Oh? Oh? Are you talking about spending time with your son or shooting things? We all know you can fire a gun, Matthew. Bravo!"

"That's enough, Delilah. Point taken!" Exclaims Matthew.

"Can you get off my ass? I'm trying…"

Matthew walks away from them, hands in pockets, whistling as if nothing had happened. 

Matthew eventually slows down to allow them to catch up.

Heavy rain begins to fall.

Mathew waits on a knee to embrace Tim.

"Son, I love you."

Matthew stands and grabs Delilah by the hand.

"I love you, too. I always have, and I always will."

Matthew feels her again—just for a moment—long enough to lean in and whisper," Delilah, if I cannot come back, I want you to know it's okay. It's better that way. Tim will stay. He will finally live safe and free…"

Delilah's eyes shine through the darkness.

"I have nothing left that I can offer you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for everything. It's time now. I must leave."

Tim cries as Matthew departs. 

"Don't you think of coming back this time!" Hearkens Delilah. "You hear me! Don't you come back!!!!”

***

The warehouse doors are agape like stretched jaws waiting to consume him.

Matthew walks further, hypnotized by the glowing altar and smoking incense that swirls like an ethereal storm. The altar is calmly waiting for him, lucidly outlined by a pentagram. 

Ten isosceles triangles, five acute triangles, and five obtuse triangles chalked a perfect geometric construction.

Matthew pulls three candles from his sports jacket and lights all three.

The onlookers surrounding the altar are naked.

Many of them are drenched in blood.

Others are in the process of mutilating themselves with sharp instruments

They babble alien words that cannot be understood.

Outside the circle stand robed beings with hoods dangling over hidden faces.

Matthew strips naked and stands in the center of the circle

He drinks a crimson liquid, thick and tacky. 

The hallucinations begin. 

A lifetime of victims reminds Matthew of the shame and guilt he now suffers. 

The lives he had taken, eloping spirits madly weaving in and out of the shadows without any particular order.

"Take me… I am the disease. Spare my family! It was me… never them. I'm the one…"

Matthews's hands tremble as he drops tightly bound scrolls containing the names of those he wishes to release from the curse.

The room begins to vibrate, oscillate, and blur.

"I am the sickness. I am the disease. Spare my child. I am the sickness. I am the disease. Spare my child. Dammit! I said come to me! I am the sickness…the disease! Spare my child!"

A bell rings.

The robed entities approach the center and pull their hoods back.

Milky, bullet-skulled, shaved heads with sharp kernels of jutting marrow give way to the fact that they are not mere mortals.

Their black eyes are without expression.

They take Matthew and force him to lie on the altar.

The demons caress his body with oil, and quickly, his skin numbs.

Coins are placed on his eyes after they have been meticulously sewn shut.

The tip of a blade is inserted into Matthew's bony sternum and pulled down all the way to his naval.

Matthew moans.

Streams of blood rush down jagged layers of fettered flesh.

Several sets of hands pull and hollow the yawning chasm, sifting and squeezing the organs inside.

Just as Matthew passes out, he feels the sensation of something being forced into the abyss of his guts.

Darkness falls.

***

When Matthew wakes, it's dark outside, 

He is buckled behind an unmarked black SUV with the heater on high and the engine rumbling.

James, Matthew's partner, nudges him and offers a fresh cup of brewed coffee.

Matthew blinks, takes the cup, and stares at the low-income housing complex across the street.

Three people are gossiping out front. 

A skinny shaved white kid in sweatpants, a fat black man in dreads, and a rail thing Hispanic teenager with a skirt so short that her ass is hanging out.

The gang walks a block to the northwest towards the local strip joint.

James offers Matthew a hit of coke off a small spoon.

Matthew snorts it, and he's suddenly aware of the world in a deeper, clearer way.

Another car blasts Guns N' Roses "Welcome to the Jungle".

"You kids don't know the half of it…"

James smirks.

  "… it's go time!”

Guns, unholster.

Safeties click off. 

Within moments, the gang knows they are being pursued. 

The skinny kid whistles. 

The Latina girl trips over her high heels.

The fat man does not even move. He grins and puts his hands up.

"Don't shoot," he says.

Matthew pays no mind and puts a bullet right between his eyes.

***

Rats run up and down behind alleyway garbage cans.

They nip at Matthew's flesh.

"Just make it end!" Matthew screams.

It will be over soon. 

Matthew tries to remember their names.

All the people, friends, the world around, especially the boy whose hair was brown. 

His boy.

He recalls how Delilah got him into this whole mess.

"I did it for you, Delilah! Everything was for you! Remember, we couldn't even have Timmy until I made the oath!"

Matthew remembers her whispering, "You did the right thing for us, honey! For our family…"

Then, she would hold Matthew's face in her hands and try to take his pain.

Matthew would try to help her understand, but she could not.

And soon, the boy was not enough for her.

She would have what she wanted now. 

The knowledge. How it was that Matthew made it happen.

The sacrifice for love and family faded.

"You will," says Matthew. "If that's what you truly want, you'll find out soon enough."

***

It approaches with a crown of horns and antlers above its head, lumbering toward Matthew. 

Its elongated sinews and muscles move harshly and rigidly. 

Great gusts spew from its snout and flicker flames.

Its eyes glow red, and it comes with three purposes in mind.

Kill.

Steal.

Destroy.

Delilah falls to her knees in worship.

"He called upon you, master. It was Matthew, not I…"

But there is no pleading now. 

Nothing left to ask for.

Nothing to forgive 

It shifts its shape as it walks.

One moment, it has a goat head, and the following is a minotaur. 

It does not listen or reason.

Pain is the devil's only laughter

"Oh woman, what a naive delight you have been," it says as a great wingspan unfolds behind its back.

It stands erect and stretches its wings, fluttering as other creatures emerge from under its leathery feathers.

"You wanted to see me. Here I am…"

Ants begin filling Matthew's chest, and Delilah is infested with beetles. Unable to make a sound, their mouths open, and they vomit grubs and worms.

"Didn't see this one coming. You ask your husband to sell his soul for a child, then have the audacity to beg my presence!"

A rush of wind and a blast of heat keeps Matthew's eyes closed. He recalls the sculptures, the piles of sticks, the pyramids, twine and rope vines, and metal running up and down the alleyway containing the small sculptures he'd been making his whole life, these quiet moments of meditation-sending them out into the world the stream of evil that finally added up to a worthy sacrifice. 

"It's your turn, Delilah…Are you ready?"

Pain.

Suffering.

Vengeance.

"It's you that I take now… so hear your son's voice one final time… there, there, that's enough… you are the sickness… you are the disease…. And you shall pay for what you have done."