Behind Dark Doors (the complete collection): Eighteen suspenseful short stories, Page 3

  “Did you know he told them that he wished they would die? Then there’s the name-calling.” She paused, looking down at some notes on a jotter, and then continued as if reading from a courtroom transcript.

  “He told them they were beggars. That beggars burn in hell while the devil pokes sticks in their eyes.”

  She sat back and added—surely knowing she was throwing water onto boiling oil—“He’s thrown stones, too.”

  “Really,” I said, followed by a cough and a hasty rub of my hand across my mouth.

  I needed time to think. This was really way off script. It was flipping ballistic is what it was. My mind couldn’t think this fast, not in this kind of situation.

  My mother’s voice filtered through my thoughts. “Are you slow or just stupid?” Then her laugh, controlled and low, echoed in my head. “I guess y'er both. They’re symbiotic.”

  I knew she had that wrong. I’d looked that word up once, and “symbiotic” didn’t mean that. She should have said “sympathetic”: slow and stupid were sympathetic. They fitted together like hell and pain.

  That brought me back to the problem here, with this flipping big A.P. She wasn’t sympathetic. She should have been. For God’s sake, and anyone else who mattered, my son was wearing a cast! The doctors said he may even need another surgery, and the physiotherapy was painful and long term.

  Here she was, jabbering about Ben throwing stones and calling these filthy beggar bully kids names. Even if that’s what he did, which I wasn’t believing for a second—not one single flipping second—that doesn’t give them the right to break his wrist.

  I kept my cool. When you’ve had plastic mop handles whacked across your legs and the soft smelly mushy part of a mop shoved in your face, you learn to keep your cool. Even as your mother threatens to send your flippery slippery hide to hell (sooner than you’d planned), you keep your cool.

  “Yes, really,” said the A.P. I wondered if she would say “really” in that tone, with that stare, if I had that dirty mop in my hands right now. If I had her backed into the corner of this too-white cubicle of a room, which seemed smaller now than when we first sat down. Would she be saying “really” just like that?

  Ben was now sobbing in big loud heaves, and each sob thrust a prickly needle of anguish into my heart. Hurt wasn’t going to happen to my Ben. It was my promise the day my kids were born, and I’d kept that promise. Physical pain. Yes. That comes with life. But not this savage emotional injury. You don’t recover from that flipped-up stuff. It burns little holes in your soul. No matter how long you hope they’ll heal, they remain little black holes covered by scabs. Thin scabs. Just waiting.

  As I asked the next question I felt the scabs loosen, and the feeling of picking them away began to eat at me. “So, the other boys… the ones who broke his arm… they won’t be punished? Because of, because of—”

  I searched for the flipping word. It was in my head. What was it? It was the scabs. They were peeling away and that made it hard to think. That slipping word.

  There it was.

  “Mitigating … mitigating circumstances. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” she said, picking at a piece of fluff on the sleeve of her perfect white turtleneck.

  Another scab fell away. I felt a burn begin inside my head. The burn grew while she sat there, casually pulling and tugging at some imperceptible imperfection on her sleeve.

  Then Ben, who had sat so quietly beside me, spoke. His tiny voice was a breeze-like whisper. “Mom. I didn’t do anything. They wouldn’t leave me alone.” Then after a sniffle, he added, “I was too scared to tell or else I’d be a snitch.”

  I felt a tearing inside my head.

  Turning back to the still-picking A.P., I said, “Did you ask Ben what happened? Or weren’t you interested? Were you too busy looking for a scape—?”

  The A.P. held up her hand traffic-cop style and said, “If I could stop you right there. We gave him every opportunity to speak. When they’re silent it usually means they’re not telling … well, you know … the truth.”

  The big A.P., the judge and jury of my son, brushed at her sleeve, and ran her hands down its length before beginning an inspection of the cuticles of her hand.

  She’s sending me a message, I thought. My Mother had taught me, her face scrunched with disgust, “They talk with their bodies, the flippin’ beggars, more than they talk with their yappin’ mouths. You got to read between the actions if you want to get to their meanings. Remember, it’ll never be good. If they can’t say the words, then you don’t want to hear them.”

  As this flippery slippery judge and jury A.P. finished fiddling with the rings on her fingers and fluffing the threads on her sleeve, I realized this flipping woman was shouting me a message loud and clear. This was not Morse code which required deciphering. This was her saying quite clearly, “Flip you and your beggar son, too.”

  My Mother would have been proud. I kept my cool even as one of the last scabs—more like oozing purple boils—exploded, and a searing idea entered my head. She and all her flippery teacher pals thought we were beggars. Not normal beggars either, but going-to-hell beggars.

  So none of it mattered. Not Ben’s broken arm. Not his side of the story. Not me being trapped in this claustrophobic—where the flip was the air?—room mattered.

  They were screwing with us. Nobody had tried that little number since Mother met her death with that box cutter. Who balances cardboard on their lap while using a box cutter anyway? That is just asking for a severed artery. I would have called an ambulance but it just seemed better to wait and see. Mother hated a fuss. “Fussin’s for flippin’ travelers to hell. We’re tougher than them.”

  Yet here I was years later, with my own family, and these beggars were having their fun flipping with me. For reasons only this A.P. understood, this school, and its entire beggar staff, were screwing with my son.

  I stopped listening to her and her droning as it became background noise, but some of the words filtered into my mind and seeped into what felt now like uncovered, festering sores.

  “So in light of our investigation and the mitigating circumstances”—there were those television law words again—“you will understand why we won’t be taking further action on this matter.”

  Then she looked at Ben, who, despite hardly moving, seemed to have curled in upon himself like a small animal playing dead.

  “Ben,” she said, but he didn’t look up, instead remaining balled up and hunched. “Ben. Look at me. I hope you have learned something from this. You need to be careful how you behave.”

  A switch flicked deep inside my head. Something dark and red and hot flowed to a part of my brain I kept pushed deep down. The last time I’d visited that place was when that religious freak came knocking at my door. Religious beggars knocking on unsuspecting people’s doors is just plain wrong.

  “I don’t want God in my life,” I’d told her. “My mother’s gone and God went flipping with her.”

  Then the knocker called me “foul-mouthed” and said something about hell. The scabs peeled away as they did sometimes when things turned unjust.

  I mean, I’m standing at my own flipping door and she’s insulting me. I told her to “shove it.” To prove my point, there was the box cutter in my pocket—it comes in handy more than you would expect.

  Maybe she went to heaven. I hope she went to hell.

  “Assistant Principal,” I said, as I began to feel with all my being that Ben needed to be saved from her. When I glanced over at him, I knew that with just one more cruel word from her, he might shrink away to nothing. I couldn’t have that. Not for him.

  I kept my voice calm, because that was a skill I’d perfected, and said, “I think there are circumstances in our family that you need to understand.”

  She leaned toward us, accompanied by a scraping sound as she dragged her chair back to the table. Her neck stretched forward as her mouth tightened into a thin line of pink. She stared at me. Again.


  Then her fingers began tapping on the plastic tabletop.

  A tap-tap rhythm that burrowed into my skin.

  Words stamped up and down through my head.

  Beggar, beggar whose words don’t smell. God almighty ya goin’ to hell.

  My bag was on my lap. It only took a second to reach inside for the box cutter. She didn’t even see it in my hand until I was halfway across the table. Those things are so flipping sharp you don’t need much force. The surprise froze her, I’m sure.

  She wasn’t expecting this kind of explanation—not from beggars like us.

  You would think that a turtleneck would offer a better kind of protection. I really wondered that as I slashed across the patterned knit around her neck.

  I thought, this might only get it half done and then she’ll be back picking at that sweater again. Those box cutters are just too good. It went straight through with barely a difference between the material and her skin.

  The only thing that gave me pause was the spurt of blood. It flowed like one of those taps on a cardboard wine cask when you turn it on too hard. It was so very red against the white sweater. Someone was going to bitch about getting out that stain. They have laundry stuff to fix that, I thought. So, I’m not apologizing for the mess.

  All the little boils and scabs and nasty marks were really popping: left, right and center. It wasn’t that I was angry. It was just that she’d started something; picked that pimple when she didn’t need to pick.

  Now, she was flailing around in her chair, grabbing at her neck, which had stopped spurting since she was holding on so hard. As funny as she looked, and as good as it was to watch, I really needed to finish this.

  Or she wouldn’t learn her lesson.

  As quick as I could I moved the few feet around the desk. I think she thought it was her chance to escape. She stumbled to the door, one hand clutching at her neck, the other out ahead. There was a gurgling, hacking noise coming from her mouth. Funnily enough, it was probably a scream, but it wasn’t working out with all that blood.

  Just as she reached for the knob, and just as she leaned against the door, I grabbed the back of her sweater and pulled her back with a powerful yank. She wasn’t expecting that, and she fell sideways against the desk, before slithering to the floor, where she sat crying in short bloody splutters. Her hands were waving up at me, like one of those roadside windmill people with the wonky flailing arms.

  “I’m quicker than I look,” I said. “It comes from running from my mother.”

  She said something that I couldn’t quite understand. I think it was “Please.” Could have been “Priest.” Either one would be of no slipping help to her. I hope she understood that.

  Now that she’d stopped holding her neck, there was a river of blood pouring through the material. I think it dawned on her that she’d really underestimated me—just like my mother and the religious freak.

  Her eyes were round and now bleach white, and she was moving her head robotic-like, staring down at her sweater, then back at me, and then to the box cutter in my hand. It was as if she couldn’t work out what had just happened. Like all the facts eluded her.

  “I really can’t stay any longer. I’m flipping over this school stuff,” I said, leaning forward, my hand on her sweater, as I pulled her up and toward me. The box cutter clasped firmly in my hand was itching for another outing. My face hovered inches from hers.

  The flippery confidence she’d worn was gone. Funny that.

  Then from behind came Ben’s voice, a little hesitant, just like when he was a little guy who’d had an accident in bed. “Mom. Please stop. Maybe—”

  I thought, Maybe? Maybe it’s my turn? Maybe it’s time to go? Maybe what?

  Then he started speaking again a little louder, a little quicker, because he obviously could see that I was in a hurry.

  “Maybe I did start it. I did throw the stones and say some stuff. They wouldn’t play with me. I wanted them to play with me.”

  I didn’t mean to sigh. It just came out in a long swoop of air. You can’t be too careful with what you say or how you act around your kids. My mother’s tut-tutting and sighing had haunted me in the dark hours of many nights, like noises of a settling house.

  Sitting back on my haunches, the A.P.’s turtleneck clenched firmly in my hand, I just stared at him for quite a while. Beneath my hand, beneath the sweater, there was a guttural wheeze coming from the A.P.’s lungs as they filled with blood—blood which was also pooling at our feet, spreading quicker than a spilt bottle of ketchup. The fight was gone from her eyes.

  I looked back at the A.P. and shrugged. Not much life left there now.

  Then I turned to my son and with an “I-love-you-no-matter-what” smile I said, “Ben, I really wish you’d told me sooner.”

  © Susan May 2011

  From the Imagination Vault

  When he was in grade three, one of my youngest son’s classmates kept bothering him. It wasn’t strictly bullying but it was heading in an unpleasant direction.

  The school‘s assistant principal became involved and, despite my explanation of the situation—that my child was being threatened—somehow she turned it around so the bully was the innocent victim.

  It went on for some months. I tried everything. I talked to my son’s teacher, talked to the bullying child’s parent, talked to the child, and talked to the assistant principal. The problem persisted.

  One day the assistant principal called and was particularly arrogant and unhelpful. Something overrides your calm and sensible thinking when your child is being unfairly treated. I felt so annoyed I said to my husband, “I am writing a story and she is going in it, and there will be blood.”

  Eventually we moved him to another school, where he was very happy.

  Although my son wasn’t pushed over or had his arm broken like our young character Ben, some of the lines in “Mitigating Circumstances” were directly from the mouth of the assistant principal.

  Perhaps because of the high emotion I felt at the time, writing this story was the first time I ever truly felt characters come alive for me. I experienced the sensation of following the story, as opposed to writing it.

  In fact, the last paragraph I credit totally to the characters. Sensing the end of the story nearing, I wondered how it would conclude. When it occurred to me Ben had just witnessed his mother violently murder the assistant principal, I thought, What on Earth does this child think?

  In my mind’s eye, I turned to him and asked the question. After he gave me the answer I turned back to his mom, and she answered in such a typical mother’s way I burst out laughing.

  It’s certainly a black comedy. As crazy as the narrator is, I assure you I am just your normal soccer mom. I also have a tremendous respect for our teachers.

  A footnote to the story: The day after I wrote it, I ran into the assistant principal, who on this day was very friendly and chatty with me. As I stood there looking at her (in her turtleneck sweater), an uncomfortable feeling came over me. I couldn’t get the thought out of mind: Didn’t I kill you yesterday?

  I Hate Emma Carter

  Emma Carter is the new girl in class. Of all people, class bully Angie Dutton is assigned to be her babysitter. Angie is nobody’s keeper, so she devises a way of really showing Emma who is boss. Emma, though, may not be as defenseless as she appears. Perhaps Angie has picked the wrong victim this time.

  The day Emma Carter joined our class, storm clouds should have hung heavy overhead, and huge flocks of blackbirds, flying in weird apocalyptic patterns, should have filled the sky. It was just another sunny Monday, and we were all bursting to be done with Beetle’s—Mr. Roach’s, if you were following protocol—home room class. Beetle, with his preaching, droning speeches on living a positive life, respecting each other, and his boring, little tales of what life was like before iPads and smart phones drove us mad. Dull meets duller.

  She stood there beside Beetle, scanning the classroom, careful not to allow h
er gaze to settle on any one student. Her eyes moving so fast that, from afar, it looked like she was about to have an epileptic fit. If she didn’t stop moving her eyes like that, they were liable to roll right out of her head and land on the floor.

  Diane Smith leaned across the aisle and whispered to me, “She looks like a Cabbage Patch doll’s love child. What’s with the kooky red hair?”

  I stifled a laugh with my sleeve and waved her away. We were already on our last warning. Detention hung over our heads like the pendulum in that boring Edgar Allen Poe story Beetle loved so much.

  Diane was right, though: Emma Carter was a weird-looking, pudgy girl with wild, orange-red hair that stuck out in odd clumps around her face. On Lady Gaga, they’d have been wild curls; on Emma, they were messed-up bushes.

  Suddenly Beetle sent her to the desk directly to my left. Breathing a curse into my palm, I looked over at Diane. She rolled her eyes and I shrugged. I knew what came next.

  There it was.

  “Angela Dutton, I would like you to take Emma under your wing. Show her around the school. Let’s make her feel welcome in our class.” I forced the muscles at the sides of my mouth to move upward, but I could only hold them there for a second before I felt my mouth collapse back into a scowl.

  As the weirdo sat down, she looked over at me, gave me a little Cabbage Patch wave, and then proceeded to put her things in her desk. I could see that everything, including her pen, had her name on it in neat, label-printed, multi-colored letters. What a kindergarten kid.

  Maybe it was the labels, or maybe it was her being assigned to me without my consent, or possibly it was just the stupid color of her stupid hair, but it was at that exact moment that I began to hate Emma Carter.

  When the lunch bell rang, I grabbed Diane’s hand and bolted for the door. As soon as we hit the corridor, I whispered to her, “Forget your lunch. If we don’t ditch her here, we’ll be stuck with her for the rest of the hour.”