Don't Do This To Me

Rhys stood beneath the bright chandelier in the threshold of his parent’s mansion, staring though the windows wondering how close he was to a liquor store when he caught a glimpse of two men standing on their driveway, peering into the house.  

             “Rhys,” Abigail said, tapping him on the shoulder, her thin fingers  pressing against his shoulders.

              “This is bad Mom,”  Rhys said, turning around.

             His jaw ached. The corners of his mouth were powdered with gum he’d grinded so hard trying to conceal the alcohol on his breath.

             Abigail leaned forward. “You smell.”

             “Have you seen these two men?” Rhy said, once more looking toward the window, pointing toward the driveway.

             She placed her hands on his shoulders. Her gold bracelets rattled on her wrists. Cold air ripped through the threshold.

              “I need you to pay attention,” Abigial said. “In just a few minutes we’re going downstairs and–”

             Rhys rolled his eyes, catching a glimpse of the portraits that lined the wall next to the staircase. 100 years of Ackerman’s, the titans of industry that drank with Rockefellers and played cards with the Kennedy’s and shared hookers with the Morgan’s.

             She stopped speaking, raised her hand, and slapped Rhys across the face. He stumbled back. The redness on his face expanded like a pool of blood, the skin simmering as he felt the imprint of her hand.

             Her hand was still raised in the air, her withered fingers flexed as she stared at him. When he looked into those cold blue eye, his body tightened and a single bead of sweat dripped down his forehead. For no more than single second the world spun a thousand times.

             That look of anger that she showed him, he’d seen it before. But he couldn’t remember where.

             Outside, a cloud of smoke formed above the factory. The two men were gone, and the November night was only a few minutes away.

             Abigial stepped forward, adopting an apologetic look. “You are about to graduate from college. Your Father need to know you can make tough decisions. That when the time comes –”

             A scream bellowed from the basement.

             “What the hell was –”

             Rhy watched as Abigail’s eyes shot to the closed door of the basement.

             Another scream. This time it was worse. More desperate. Rhys felt a head ache coming.

             “Your brother and father are already down there. Let’s go,” Abigail said.

             Rhys looked briefly at the ceiling as they headed toward the basement, watching a crack that snaked around the peeling paint.

             “Let’s go.”

                                                                                   ***

             When he reached the basement, Rhys walked over to his father, bent down on one knee like he were talking to a child and said, “don’t do this.”

             Even from the basement window you still see the factory. Rhys was surprised that his father wasn’t there. Even on Saturday night his father was typically at Ackerman Factory, but Rhys knew the stress of the shutdown has bought him home early

             A little boy stood on a table in the middle of the basement. His arms were pulled taut toward the ceiling, his wrists shackled, his face was covered with a hood like he was a prisoner at Guantanamo bay.

             Rhys covered his mouth, feeling bile rise toward his throat. The boy couldn’t have been more than ten. Even though they’d talked about it for weeks, this sacrifice, or as his father called it ‘The Honoring,’ it felt different being here. A part of it.

             The boy mumbled behind the hood. Fear rushed like wildfire through his body, not just for the boy, but for the whole family.

             Something awful is going to happen.

             “Where did I go wrong with you?” his father said, rolling his wheel chair forward, his neck bent like it was stuck in a permanent state of disappointment.

             “If we go through with this…” Rhy said.

             “What?” Jimmy said, his voice a crescendo of impatience. “If we go through with this then…what?”

             “Bad things,” Rhys said.

             Jimmy nodded.  

             “People will die if we don’t do this. The factory shuts if we don’t do this, and we all lose everything. Do you want that son? Or do you want to inherit the biggest factory in the United States who’s leaders take care of its employees and its –”

              “Spare me, please,” Rhy said.  

             “Listen,” Abigail said, adopting a calmer tone. “You are the heir to this empire. And this boy. He’s not like other kids. He was born with a bad heart and brain that doesn’t know up from down.

             “We’re going to kill this…and then what?” Rhys said.

             “I’m not repeating myself,” Jimmy said.

             “Because you know it sounds insane.”

             “No. My family has lived her for hundreds of years. I can tell when a sacrifice needs to be made. When the water starts changing colors. When the baby’s in this town start dying. I know what to look for,” Jimmy said.

             The MacAllister’s were supposed to welcome twins in the word three days ago. And last week –”

             Rhys’s mind was stuck. That look she had just given him. Where had he seen it before?

             “Did you hear anything I just said?” Abigail said.

             “What?”

             “We are giving him a life that means something,” Abigail said.

             She walked toward the table. Reached out and stroked the hood resting on the boys face. He flinched, pulled tight on the metal restraints holding his wrists wrist. The boy whimpered.   

             Abigail walked forward, pulled her son toward her toward the table.

             The boy’s heads hung low. His arms trembled. Urine pooled around his feel. Then she turned to Rhys and said,  “Take off your clothes son.”

             Rhys looked up.

             “You didn’t say anything about stripping.”

              “When your clothes are off your we can begin,” Abigail said, pointing to a blanket and bucket beneath the table

              “You’re a monster,” Rhy said, his attention still on little boy. Rhys wanted to tell the little boy he was sorry for all of this. That he’d been dealt a shitty fucking hand in life and even though there was nothing he could do about it that someone somewhere loved him.

             What was his name, Rhys thought.

             Rhys took his shirt off, followed by his jeans. The luck of disgust on his mother’s face should have hurt. Her eyes gazed over the blueish color of his skin, his withered legs.

             “Underwear too boy,” Abigail said.

             Rhys grabbed the waistline of his pants, pulled down his underwear, revealing his penis and testicle that had risen into his body.

             “Get it the fuck over with,” Jimmy said, his deep voice echoing through the basement.

             His hands trembled as he bent down to grab the bucket and blanket  feeling the eyes of his mother rest on his pubic hair and tip of his penis. Rhys could tell that, beyond the actions of him and his family, that there was evil close. And that evil was watching them.  

             Abigail coughed. Took a step forward like she were getting ready to intervene. His right hand trembled as he picked up the blanket and put it on the table.

             The boy pulled on the chains, kicked hard against the table.

             “Quiet, my boy. It will be over soon,” Abigail said, stroking the forearm of the little boy.

             The smell of feces filled the air, and that’s when Rhys saw it. The streaks of shit that darkened the boys pants.

             He unwrapped the blanket, revealing a blade glistening beneath the dim light. It’s. The black of the handle was polished. Rhys picked up the knife.

             “You need to do it fast. Here,” Abigail said, pointing to the boys heart.

             Rhys a step forward. His vision blurred as he stared at the boys’ chest.

             The boy began to cry. Shit oozed from his waistband.

             “I can’t do this,” Rhys said.

             “Please,” Jimmy said.

             “I won’t.”

             The shackles rattled. When Rhys looked up a small crack ran through the ceiling.

             “You are making this worse for him,” Abigail said. “Do it now.”

             She stood behind Rhys. He could feel her cold breath on his neck. Her hands running down his back, the tail of her skirt brushing against his ass. Rhys let out a hesitant stream of onto the floor.

             “Do it now,” Abigail said.

             Rhys raised the blade. Tears fell from his eyes.

             “Now,” Abigail said.

             “Son,” Jimmy said.

             “No,” Rhys said.   

             Jimmy and Abigail looked at each other, and that’s when Rhys watched Abigail pull the knife away, take a step forward toward the boy, and shove the knife into the boys chest.

             The crying stopped as the blade disappeared into the little boys chest. Blood speckled through his ripped shirt.

             “Mom?” Rhy said.

             She removed the blade. A half second of pure silence followed by a cry that pierced Rhys’s  eardrums like a hot needle.

             The boy pulled the chains back and forth and back and forth, metal on metal, as the blade found its way into the boys abdomen again and again and again. He kicked toward Abigail, his little sneakers rising high into the air.

             Each stab was wrought with cries and tears.

             Abigails eyes were focused. Her withered hands calculated. Each strike lethal. Soon, the kicking slowed, Abigail took a step back. Counted to sixty to see to wait for any signs of movement. Then it would be time to fill the bucket. To was Rhys. To start anew.

             A voice whimpered behind the hoodie.

             “Please.”

             Rhys vomited.

             Abigail stepped toward the little boy. The lower part of his shirt hung in tatters, covered in blood. At his feet was a growing pool of blood and piss. Rhys could still see the little nose that protruded against the black hood. The guttural screams were replaced by quiet plea’s for help.

             He still wanted to know the little boy’s name.

             Abigail stepped forward, gripping the knife, ready to land a few more thrusts into the child when the child spoke again.

             “Does Jimmy know what you did?”

             But this time, even though the voice came from the little boy, it sounded like an adult that was full of curiosity and bitterness.

             “What did it say?” Jimmy said.

             Rhys watched Abigail. She was motionless, the knife half was toward the little boy’s body.

             “Don’t you know why your little boy drinks Jimmy? Or why he tried to kill himself? Its because I don’t even think Rhys knows what happened to him or why he tried to kil himself,” the boy said.

             The three of them. They didn’t move. There was evil here. An evil that no one knew existed, and an evil that was mocking them, playing with them.

             “What are you?” Jimmy said.  

             “We have to finish this. Rhys, you need to eat –”

             The little boy cut off Abigail.

             “You will not eat of this lamb,” the boy said, raising his head toward Abigail.

             Abigail took another step back.

             “Mom?” Rhys said. “What the hell is going on?”

             Abigail said nothing.

             The little boy took pulled hard on the shackles hanging from the wall. As he pulled, the metal dug into his wrists. Blood dripped on his forearm. When he was done pulling, the shackles fell to the ground.  

             He gripped the hood and pulled it off. At first, Rhys could only see what looked like blue lips and bruised skin. But as he pulled, Rhys saw reddened eyes, skin that was hills and valleys of wrinkles. He was a sickened man in a child’s body.

             The little boy looked at Rhys. His eyes changed to that of Abigail’s, the calming ice blue, and that’s when Rhys went numb.

             The little boy said, “This will be our little secret alright Rhys? Now, I want you to go in the corner and pull down your pants for Mommy.”

             The little boys voice was exactly has Abigail had sounded when Rhys was a child.

             “What is he saying Abigail?” Jimmy said.

             Tears dripped from Abigail’s eyes.

             “Now touch Mommy where she likes to be touched…that’s right. Yes. Yes. Right there…Yes,” the little boy said, breathing hard.

             “Mom,” Rhys said.

             “You have to finish this,” Abigail said.

             “What is he talking about?”

             “I don’t know. I don’t know,” Abigail said, wiping a tear from eyes.

             She dropped the knife.

             The boy jumped down from the table. He walked past Abigail, grabbing the knife and headed toward Jimmy. When he stood in front of the wheel chair, he plucked the knife into Jimmy’s abdomen.

             Blood spewed ffrom Jimmy’s mouth.

             “What are you?” Jimmy said.

             “And you shall not let any of thy seed pass through the fire,” the boy said.

             He shoved the knife into Jimmy’s abdomen. Again. And again. And again. Until his eyes rolled to the back of his head and intestines leaked from open skin.

             Rhys stood next to his mother, still naked and covered in blood.

             As the boy walked away toward the stairs , he seemed to gain in height and strength. He walked past Rhys, then over to his mother, and said, “Work shall set you free.”

             “I don’t want to go. Please. I’m sorry, I can’t go. I can’t,” Abigail said, her voice fraught with desperation.

             The little boy, who looked deformed, did not turn around when he said, “You know where we are going. And where we are going you cannot come.”

             He chuckled when he was done speaking, and pulled Abigail out of the house.

             “Mom,” Rhy said.  

             Rhys watched from the front door, as the little boy, who was no longer little, pulled his mother to the two men that had been at his driveway. Together, the three of them walked toward the factory.