Dinner with Mom and Dad

The boards squeaked under the weight of his father staggering up the front porch steps. Jordan ran, his six-year-old legs ungracefully bringing him down the hallway to the kitchen.

He jumped in his chair, almost bowling over in it as the door unlocked, the screen slamming home like a coffin closing.

Jordan kept his head down, the thump-thump of his father's footfalls getting louder, the uneven steps a subtle warning to him. Dad had been drinking.

Those dragging feet and his hating violence had scared Jordan's mom so much she had left. Jordan still had dreams of her coming back for him. Those were the best ones. She would sweep in, taking him away, off to someplace his father could never find them. But he knew she was not coming back. As sure as the food he made would taste terrible.

Microwaved peas and macaroni rolled divided the unmatched plates. That was all Jordan could find in the pantries to make. Of course, there were always a few chilled beers, half a bottle of whiskey on the counter, and some instant-mix meals half-emptied and stale on a low shelf with none of the other required ingredients. 

Only mom had been good at making anything with the oven or stove. For Jordan, burnt food was a black eye or swollen cheek, so why even try.

His dad loomed over the table, picking up his plate.

"What the fuck is this?" 

Jordan trembled as he spoke.

"Dinner."

His father's drunken silence filled the air with the chance of wickedness, but he walked over to the sink, the plate clattering to rest among the other unwashed dishes.

"You can eat this shit."

He opened his cabinet above the fridge, grabbing some canned food, and slammed it shut before sitting. Jordan stared at his plate as his dad opened the first can, the scent of processed chili filling the room with the greasy dampness of factory-packaged food. Scooping it out in heaps, his father shoveled bite after bite in his mouth, not fully chewing the first before the next came.

Eventually, Jordan worked up the courage to start eating. He tried chewing quietly, taking small bites while his father rutted through the first of the three cans on the table.

The floorboards on the front porch creaked and they both paused. Jordan and his father looked at each other in confusion. Nobody ever came to their house. It was on the back road of a back road.

"Go see what that was." His father ordered but did not continue eating, glaring at him as he passed. But Jordan froze in the doorway, seeing something move outside in the black.

"Go on." His father hissed, pushing him so hard he almost fell on his face.

He stepped lightly as if his quiet footfalls would keep the things in the dark at bay.

All the other lights inside were off, save for the front porch and the hallway. Jordan caught movement by the front door out of the corner of his eyes and tensed.

The front door, still open, creaked in the breeze. Behind it, someone silhouetted in shadows looked inside. They swayed, the light overhead bathing them in piss yellow hues as it flickered on and off. Stepping closer, pulse racing, he saw short hair framing round cheeks.

It was his mother's face. 

But something was wrong. 

He neared, seeing her head tick back and forth in small jerks. Her hair, once the color of sun-soaked wicker chairs, now was the pale gray of ash with splotches of moss green. The visible veins under her skin bulged with coagulated blood, swelling like rodents digested by a snake. Her thin cracking lips twitched up into a smile, pinching sunken cheeks until the empty sockets of her eyes were half-closed in a gleeful squint.

With a shaking hand, Jordan opened the door, the closed screen door now the only barrier between them.

Jordan let out a long breath, still, the words came out like a sigh.

"Daddy killed you, didn't he." He stated more than asked.

His mother pressed her rotting fetid hand to the screen.

"It wasn't your fault."

He wept, hugging himself and gripping his elbows so hard he broke the skin.

"It wasn't."

He looked up at her face. Through the decay, through the rot. In those haunting eyes, he saw her unending love for him.

"I love you, mommy." He trembled.

His father's drunken voice stole the moment from them.

"Who is it?"

His mother's finger tapped the screen next to the latch.

"Let me in please."

"Boy, I asked you a question." His father kicked his chair back and rounded on his son.

Jordan's hand went to the latch.

"You shit, I'm talking to--

Jordan's mother stepped inside and ushered him out with a cold but gentle hand. His father, frozen in the living room, stared at his wife with wide eyes and a slack expression.

"Janine?"

Jordan left, not looking back. Without a word he knew that's what his mother wanted. With a gentle hand, she had told him just like all the other times she had left him in his room alone to keep him safe.

The screaming started when he reached where the woods met the gravel road, but he did not look back. If he raised his head he might have seen the phantasms, so similar to his mother, scattered amongst the trees like seeds thrown from a shaking hand with their haunting hollow eyes. He might have been too scared to walk away from the only home he had known.

He left, but only necessity brought him back almost thirty years later.

Jordan neared his old home. Now fully rusted truck parked in the driveway, windows shattered or coated in dirt, siding surfaced in the creeping plants of the forest.

The floorboards to the porch groaned, paired with the splitting cracks of rotting wood. The door was gone, but small vines creeping up over the years had swallowed the frame, partially blocking the entrance.

Jordan moved inside with his son, holding back the green as they stepped into the dark. 

The room was no bigger than he remembered, but being in it made him feel smaller.

He shouldered his rifle, holding a gentle hand to his son's back.

"Stay here." He said. His son nodded, eyes remaining downcast.

Jordan saw the place his father had been standing the last time he had seen him. For a fraction of a moment, he hoped for some evidence of him, some trace to say he had died. But he knew he would find nothing.

It was how the phantasms worked. They left no trace of those they took. Left no signs of their coming and were gone just as fast.

The world had changed since that night. Skeletal cities like the rotting corpses of colossal dead beasts, haunting nights of unending requests by the phantasms, men killing in starving desperation only to be stolen by the lives they took to survive, slowly and semblance of civilization had bled away. But through it, Jordan had kept his head down. He had made himself so small they could not see him and had taught others to do the same. In a small way, he owed his father for that.

"Junior, it's okay." He said, dragging a finger along the table as he walked around, stopping at his chair. He pulled it back, dusting it off for his son.

Jordan paused a moment but sat in his father's seat, the old wood creaking.

In front of him were the two cans of chili from that night. He rolled one across the table to his son and opened his, throwing the can opener to his son who did the same. They cleaned the utensils on their shirts and ate as the spiced aroma of chili filled the room smelling the same as then.

They ate in silence but Jordan's son froze, a spoonful halfway to his mouth. Someone was sitting at the table with them.

The phantasm's head ticked back and forth, grey hands resting on the table, hollow eyes pinched from the smirk on her thin lips as she looked at Jordan. He smiled back at her.

"Junior... this is your grandmother." He said and took another bite.