A bouquet of roses, gingerbread cookies, and a gallon of milk inch their way along the conveyor belt toward me. The store is packed. I’ll never understand why people wait until Christmas Eve to do their holiday shopping.
Across the lane, my coworker, a woman in her seventies, tries to lift a twenty-four pack of water into a cart. The store doesn’t hire many baggers anymore. I glance at the self-checkout lane. It’s empty. The gaggle of teens to which said water now belongs are roughly my age, tapping away on rose gold phones. They ignore her. I grab the milk, catching a bit of their conversation.
“Hey, when are you leaving for France?”
“Right after graduation. I’m spending the summer there before I start college.”
Out-of-towners. Giggling, not giving myself or my coworker a single glance, they prance out the door. I watch them, frowning. Lane empty for a moment, I look out the large glass windows at the front of the store. The sky seems to melt from ocean into fire.
My manager walks up; the look on his face tells me I’m in for a lecture. “Jack, my boy, don’t frown at the customers. I don’t pay you to look angry. Smile.”
I open my mouth as wide as I can, showing off my crooked teeth.
“On second thought,” he says, “keep your mouth shut.”
As the next customer enters my lane, I glance at the clock and rub my eyes. Legs trembling, I grab the register to steady myself.
“Are you alright, my boy?”
“Yes, I’m just a bit tired.”
“Perhaps you should head home for the day. Can’t have you passing out on the job and making the store look bad. I’ll drive you home.”
He loops his arm through mine practically carrying me out of the store like a swooning princess into the parking lot where a fancy schmancy carriage awaits, fine white stallion champing at the bit. I lean against the passenger seat window and look out, eye lids heavy. Gray clouds form in the distance. My eyes close.
The thing drops its beer bottle onto the sidewalk and grabs my wrist, dragging me along behind it toward a large wooden door. The door opens onto a row of white pews. A guillotine sits before a giant gold cross at the front end of the church. Most people get up and form a line down the center aisle, walking over a brightly colored rainbow shining with a false light. The thing pushes me down into one of the pews and sits down next to me to watch, a wide grin contorting its face. I grab a black children’s bible with gold lettering from the pew in front of me, opening it to see an image of the bow, fading out at the end, grace leaving. The blade comes down. A head rolls down the aisle, coming to rest at my feet. Lifeless blue eyes look up at me.
Something red flutters before my eyes, snapping my attention into the living room. I watch, from the comfort of an old recliner, long cracks running through its imitation leather skin, as my mother plucks another tattered garland from the box of assorted holiday decorations at my feet. I can see in her eyes, a deeper blue than I imagine the ocean to be, that her smile is genuine despite the plastic tree. In the corner, a rocking chair creaks as its occupant, eyes clouded in white, cloaked in patchwork quilt, my grandmother, begins her nightly rhythm.
“Jack, dear, can you find your grandmother’s angel?” she asks, repositioning a footstool next to the tree.
“Christmas is pagan. I learned it in history class. Saturnalia falls on that date, a day of slaves feasting as equals with their masters. Tell me again why we celebrate a pagan holiday?” I ask.
“Those are false teachings peddled by that awful public school.” She sprays pine scent liberally to make up for the tree’s lack of festive smell, but no scent created by man can mask the odor, a mixture of mold and cat piss, that permeates every inch of our little apartment. “I wish we had the money to send you someplace decent.”
“Please, stop. You aren’t going to bring the forest to this house no matter how hard you try.” I cough as the chemicals burn their way down my throat and bend to the task at hand. Discarding pieces of broken ornaments, I rummage through the box and grasp the ancient tree-topper.
The angel itself rests atop a rusty cone of metal that’s usually hidden from view by a formerly white frock, long since yellowed from years in storage. The wings are in tatters, but its most disturbing feature is the eye. Yes, eye not eyes. A fall deprived this beastly thing of its right window to the waking world. The one on the left, however, possesses a stern enough glare for two. There’s no warmth in that eye, only a piercing cold that seems to look right through me as though passing judgement for the actions of my younger self against its magnificent person. Even the God YHWH could not have loved this angel, dog god, god dog. Everything is upside down.
The sound of music from above, loud enough to shake the walls, drags me back to the realm of the living. Life for the upstairs neighbors seems to involve one endless party. I hear the bedroom door creak and turn to see Benjamin, who looks like someone fished him out of Lake Michigan, running toward me, blanket in hand.
“The ceiling is raining again,” he says quietly, tugging the wet blanket close. Unlike me, jaded in my old age of seventeen years, little Ben usually has my mother’s cheery countenance.
I hand my mother the angel as the footstool wobbles a bit beneath her. “Mom, Ben says the bedroom ceiling is leaking. The neighbors must have flooded their floor again.” She ignores me, balancing precariously to place the family heirloom atop the tree, but I continue, “I thought you were going to talk to the landlord. They can’t keep doing this. We’re paying rent too.” No response.
Resigned, I scour the apartment for all the buckets I can find. If God tells her one day to sacrifice either one of us for a seat at his side, I think she will. Of course, I’ll be the first on that altar, heathen that I am.
I make my way into the bedroom armed with buckets, rags, garbage bags, and an old umbrella for protection to find both beds soaked through and the ceiling dripping in a few different places. Thankfully, anything of importance is either in a plastic bucket or far away at my hideout. I don’t dare leave anything valuable here lest the thing steal it for profit.
I place a bucket under every drip, wipe up what I can, and open the window. It’s raining out, but it can’t get any soggier in here. I remove all the sheets in hopes that the breeze, although chilly, will help the mattresses to dry. Rain on Christmas Eve is an odd thing. It’s an unusually warm winter.
I pick through the few belongings there, throwing the unsalvageable in a garbage bag. Two objects remain. A paperback copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is on the floor next to my bed. I pick it up. It’s a bit damp, pages sticking together, but the mattress protected it somewhat. I drop the garbage bag, tuck the book into my pants, and pick up the other object to avoid damnation.
It’s a jack-in-the-box. Ben’s little devil-in-the-box. Black and white diamonds decorate its outer surface. I haven’t seen this in years. I bought it for Ben’s first birthday.
“A penny for a spool of thread, a penny for a needle, that’s the way the money goes, pop—” I sang.
A devil popped out before I reached the verse about the weasel. Its face was white, and a red tongue lolled out of its mouth. Ben broke out into a giggle and clapped his hands together once. I struggled to push the devil back into its box.
My hands feel cold. My eyes refocus on the water-stained box, the contents of which drip onto my hands. I remove the soggiest hand and wipe it on my pants then turn the box over. Water pours out. The handle is stuck and won’t turn. I dig my fingers under the lid. It doesn’t budge. I set it on the windowsill atop a mattress and grab the garbage bag.
I return to find Ben helping Mother untangle the lights. Well, trying to help. He seems more adept at getting himself tangled up in them.
“Ben, do you know what day it is tomorrow?” she asks.
“The day I get a present?”
“No, it’s the day of Jesus’ birth. We have to get ready to celebrate it.”
“That isn’t in the Bible,” I interject, disentangling Ben before he can strangle himself.
“Jack,” she says, sighing, “everyone needs something to believe in.”
Sinking back down into the recliner, I look at Ben and say, “I laid a sleeping bag down for you in a dry spot. Change and go back to bed.”
He shakes his head and jumps up, defiantly, onto my lap. I gingerly pick him up and plop him on the sofa next to the thing, languishing in a drunken stupor. Ben shrinks away from it and glares at me. “I can’t fall asleep. The music is too loud.”
“I don’t have time to babysit you. A friend is expecting me at midnight. I’m going to explore another abandoned building. If I find anything interesting, I’ll bring it back for you. Sit here quietly or return to your domain.”
“I’m not a baby.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” I say, glancing at the soggy blanket that sprouts from his arm like another appendage. No, at six years, he’s not quite a baby anymore. I look down at the damp spot on my pants. However, the Leviathan is a possibility.
The thing grunts. I grab the remote and turn the sound on the television up. It’s old and boxy, nothing like the almost paper-thin digital boxes those of gentler stock own. If those government types hadn’t been so kind as to give us a converter box after the switch from analog to digital, we wouldn’t even have an idiot box to while away the time with. I can’t help but speculate on their motives. Those of the court don’t generally give away things for free when a profit can be made. The Bottoms of the world must play an ass to win a kiss from Queen Titania.
Annoyance fills me as I flip through the channels, all news programs, babbling on about the exact same things. I wonder why the people who run these stations bother with multiple channels when they all say the same crap. Yet another war is brewing. Give your pennies to the poor animals. Well, I happen to like my pennies, and I refuse to be manipulated into feeling miserable about it.
A government type comes on. She is quite the moldy old lady, all fancy pant suits and manicured nails. In a perky voice, she says, “Come, join us as we enter into a brave new world. The future is in the hands of our young ones and giving them a proper education is our utmost priority—”
I switch to a local news station. “In other news, the local mall will be torn down early this spring to make way for a new library and community center.”
Mother, finished with her decorating, walks over to the sofa to berate me. “Jack, you know I don’t want your brother watching the television. I’m responsible for his education now, and I don’t want you ruining him with your wicked ways.” She picks Ben up.
I notice a pile of empty beer bottles and a bottle of pills in front of the thing. “I gave you that money for rent not to water a useless drunk.”
“That useless drunk is your father,” she says, pausing to give me a stern look. “He promised me when he moved back in that he would try looking for a job. I’ll need his help if I’m going to stay home to homeschool your brother. You know that. Just give it time. The Lord will provide.”
“I don’t want him staying here anymore if he’s like this,” I say. She flinches.
“That isn’t your decision to make.”
“Isn’t it? Who pays most of the bills?”
Looking down at the lump passed out on the sofa, I feel the familiar fire kindle within me. He doesn’t look human to me when he’s like this. I can only think of him as an it, and it’s nothing but a fat dirty pig snorting in its sleep.
Snatching up the keys on the kitchen counter, I bound past the two of them to the apartment door, light as any deer, and wrench it open, stepping out into the dimly lit hall. I pause to lock the door behind me before heading toward the main exit. Outside, I make my way to a tree, in front of the apartment complex, ball my right hand into a fist, and punch it. Feel the skin on my knuckles scrape off against the rough bark of the barren oak. Blood wells on my knuckles, and I pause to take in a lung full of cold air.
Here I am, out in the rain with nothing but an old holey sweater for protection. I’m an idiot. I glance back at the window on the lower left, feeling a pang of regret at its soft glow, warm and inviting. I consider, for a moment, going back in for the umbrella but turn away from the light.
The night is still, barring the distant sound of sirens. No street lamps grace this little side street, so my only guide though the darkness is a string of Christmas lights on the surrounding houses and apartment buildings. They’re half-assed affairs, but I head north following them anyway. They smirk down at me with their gap-toothed grins.
Unlike the Christmas often shown on the idiot box with the mansions, pure white snow, and fancy people going door to door singing carols, the snow around here is gray and dirty. And the carolers, I don’t think they’re real. They never seem to shiver despite being surrounded by snow.
A street lamp comes into view, and I step out onto the main road. It’s dead as most are at home with their families, watching football and eating roast pork.
Shops line both sides of the road. There was once a lively strip mall on the right with a dollar store on its far end. All the buildings stand empty now except one coffee shop smack in the middle on the left side of the road. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone go into the place, but it’s covered in lights, all their pearly whites intact. The windows of the empty strip mall, across the street from the coffee shop, mirror the lights, giving the illusion that the whole area is still operational.
I walk down the road toward the far end, aiming for the dollar store whose manager’s office now serves as my hideout. It’s ugly but quiet. Not much to do around these parts besides explore, and I needed someplace when I was a bit younger that my father couldn’t find and drag me back to church on Sundays. I’d often imagined myself as an explorer, searching out ancient ruins, discovering lost civilizations, and earning the admiration of the intellectual set. It sure beat going to church.
At the rear entrance, I move to dig out my keys, but find the chain already unlocked. I head to the back room. Peter, dressed in the dark clothing that I requested he wear tonight, picks through my stack of books, oblivious to my entrance. Everyone, even the aunt he lives with, calls him Stinky due to his uncanny ability to smell like a sewer rat. His matted dirt brown hair doesn’t help disabuse anyone of that image.
“Hey, it’s about time. I’m just—” He drops the book in his hand and jumps up, looking decidedly guilty.
“Not stealing my books, I hope. That’s rather base of you,” I say, pulling out the copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and throwing it on the pile. Stinky has a habit of borrowing things that don’t technically belong to him. Well, so do I, but unlike him, I’ve never been caught. Shivering, I hurry over to a pile of garbage bags and pull out a black hoodie, jogging pants, and a jacket. I found them in a local department store’s dumpster. It’s amazing the things rich folk throw in the trash.
“Base? What are you, British? I don’t know how you read this crap.” He gestures toward the small mountain of books, my priceless treasures. “Shakespeare, really? What a regular old scholar you are.”
“Don’t dis the bard.”
“Look, I know I said I’d help you tonight, but I was wondering. You see, there’s this party. Do you want to go with me?” Stinky asks, shuffling from side to side. We’ve known each other since the start of high school, but I still find him baffling at times.
“Why?”
“Isn’t that something people usually do for fun?”
“Not me,” I say, confused at the disappointment in his voice; he knows I don’t like parties or large groups of people. “If you want to go, then go. You don’t need me.”
“Never mind. Stupid idea. Uh, where are we going this time?”
“The old mall.” An ache grips my chest. I want to go someplace special. As my mother says, it’s a special day, and this is my last chance before they tear the place down. Of all my proposed explorations, this one has proved impossible, until now. These last few months spent gathering supplies and surveillance will finally amount to something.
I grab a black backpack and check my supplies which include two flashlights with extra batteries, two pairs of thick work gloves that Stinky pinched for me from the hardware store, various screwdrivers, a hammer, and a pocket knife. I take out the knife and put it in my jacket pocket. This isn’t going to be easy. I swing the backpack over my shoulder, grab a crowbar, and step out into the street, Stinky following close behind.
The mall is owned by a foreign corporation. Not sure what kind of corporation, only that it’s a corporation, and it’s very foreign. Since its closure in my childhood, the mall has been left to rot. Although, the men of the foreign corporation did have their henchmen raise a mighty nice and shiny fence around it.
I put on my gloves, scale the fence, and drop down the other side to wait for Stinky. He manages to land, with a less than graceful thump, on his ass.
“Isn’t there an easier way?” he asks.
“No.”
I help him up, and together, we slowly creep across the parking lot toward the rear of the mall. Pete moves to turn on the flashlight I gave him on the walk over, but I slap his hand away from it and put a finger to my lips. It won’t do for anyone to see a light; security does rounds. I motion for him to follow.
There’s a window at the back, on higher ground than the front entrance, that leads directly into the second floor. At some point in the distant past someone broke it, and the owner just boarded it up. But the plywood is loose, a few missing nails leaving a gap almost wide enough to squeeze though. Stinky and I manage to widen the gap enough with the crowbar for the both of us to slip through. He runs off ahead into the darkness.
As I fumble for my flashlight, a dim light pulses ahead of me.
“Pete?”
I see small wings shimmering iridescent like some fairy ripped out of a tale. With a yell I back up, dropping my flashlight. Clattering to the floor, it clicks on. Its artificial light shines on shuttered storefronts on either side of me with a metal railing about fifteen yards ahead. Beckoned, I walk over to the rail. The fairy’s light flickers brighter like wood thrown onto a fire, illuminating the center square on the ground floor. I grip the cold metal and pull myself up. My parents brought me here every Christmas before the move. My last time here, I had been about Ben’s age.
I jumped up and down in a failed attempt to see over the railing. Stubby fingers grasping at the cold metal. My father towered over me, a smile on his face.
He picked me up and held me by the rail. I looked down and saw a small train. It was just large enough for a young child to ride, chugging along a track that encircled a giant tree. Piles of presents sat beneath its boughs. I saw the tree, smelled the pine, and heard the mass of people moving about in a rush to pick out last minute gifts.
I leaned over the railing to get a better look. “Be careful. Don’t fall, Jack,” my father said with a laugh, holding me tight.
“Jack, Jack!” I turn, still leaning over the rail, and catch the light from Pete’s flashlight right in my eyes. He grabs the back of my sweater and pulls. The fabric stretches like taffy.
“Hey—” I step down off the rail.
“Were you trying to kill yourself?” He lets go. “Can we get out of here? Place give me the creeps.”
“Where’s the fun in that? Let’s explore.”
“All these stores were locked up tight ages ago.”
“We’ll see about that. There has to be some interesting junk in a place this big,” I say, turning away from him and skipping down the escalator.
A large storefront emerges to my right as I jump off. Its letters are long gone, but enough of the outline remains that I can still make it out. It’s a bookstore, my bookstore.
“I remember this place. My Fa—”
Stinky walks over and stands next to me. “What?”
“Never mind.”
There is a gate, but it’s open a crack. I shine my light at the opening. “See?”
“Whatever.”
I slip through and leave him behind, rushing past row after row of empty bookshelves. A few stickers and signs here and there remind customers to “Buy One Get One Free” and “Classics Thirty Percent Off.”
The children’s corner runs along the back wall. I turn my flashlight on the shelves and spot one book on the bottom. I pick it up, open it, flip to the first page, and read it aloud, “Once there was a mouse who had a little house.” I shut and inspect the book. A children’s book, missing its cover but otherwise intact. Holding onto it, I move further down the aisle.
Multiple large bean chairs of every primary color had once graced this area of the bookstore. My father never liked books, but he enjoyed listening to me read my favorites to him.
I picked three books out from the bottom shelf, grasping them close to my chest. I ran over to the chairs, but halfway there, I tripped, books flying out of my arms.
“Take it slow. No reason to hurry.” My father picked me up and carried me over to a blue bean chair. He handed me a book.
“Start with this one. The cover looks interesting,” he said. “These things aren’t very comfortable.” He sat down in a red bean chair across from me, looking at me with a pained expression.
Stinky slams into my back, and I stumble forward a step, dropping the book.
“Watch it,” I say, searching for it with my flashlight.
“I heard something.”
“Don’t be silly.” I find the book and pick it up. “We’re the only ones here. Like you said, most of this place is boarded up tight. Getting in takes too much effort.”
“Could be the cops.”
“I doubt it.” I stand still and listen for a moment, looking at the empty corner, wishing the books and the father I remember would materialize out of the empty air. “You’re hearing things. Come on.”
We wander down the hall on the first floor, poking into the shops on either side. Only one isn’t boarded up beyond my meager ability to penetrate. It’s a computer repair shop. A handful of floppy disks carpet the floor. Stinky picks up a few of them.
A loud sound like a donkey braying makes both of us jump. He drops the floppy disks.
“What was that?”
The braying continues.
“I told you I heard something.”
“Shut up.”
Stinky drops his flashlight and runs. Light bounces up and down on the far wall.
“Pete. Come back! It’s alright!” He doesn’t return.
My hand finds my jacket pocket and grasps a pocket knife. I turn my flashlight in the direction the noise seems to be emanating from. A man shaped figure emerges from the darkness, prancing gaily toward me, petals falling from his hair. On shoulders covered by a patchwork cape, grin a donkey’s head. His teeth open as he brays a joyful song.
“A penny for a spool of thread, a penny for a needle, that’s the way the money goes…”
He beckons me, prancing away. I follow, entranced.
“…pop! Goes the weasel.” The figure fades back into darkness, leaving a last image of disembodied teeth grinning with an eerie light before popping out of existence.
There, huddled next to a shop entrance, a metal gate barring its door, rests a moaning pile of blankets. Holding the knife in front of me, the light of my flashlight illuminates the face of a man. He shrinks away. I turn off the light.
“Hey, are you alright?”
He doesn’t answer, covering his face with a blanket and turning around to lie facing the wall. He lets out a pitiful groan.
I shake my head not knowing what I’m looking for. I look at the book in my hand and unzip my backpack, stuffing it inside to take it home for Ben. I turn the light back on, pointing it away from the homeless man, and head back to the broken window to exit the building.
A thick fog surrounds the mall, obscuring everything in sight, consuming the light from my flashlight. I turn it off. As my eyes adjust, I carefully pick my way forward, arms held out front. My fingers hit cold metal, and I climb the fence.
A tall elvish figure waits on the other side, hair white as snow, skin blue as a corpse. With a commanding air, he points ahead into the swirling fog. I can’t refuse the command and run forward, searching for the road. I can’t see anything. I look around frantically for direction. I can’t find any. I run.
Out of the darkness, two bright lights approach quickly, piercing through the fog. I stop, unable to move. Tires screeching, the grill of the truck halts inches from my face. Dimly, I hear a voice screaming my name.
The light from my apartment’s doorway casts a human shaped shadow onto the snow. The smell of the thing’s breath, reeking of booze, clogs my nostrils. I grab it and shove, it flies out from the doorway and staggers onto the walkway, just barely managing to keep its footing. There should have been ice there, but it’s too warm. Inside or out, it’s too warm. Pity, I would’ve liked to see it fall.
The cold hits me as I step out into the night after the thing, but it doesn’t cool my rage. It looks so pitiful and confused. My unprotected fingers tighten into a fist and hit the thing, first in the mouth then in the forehead just above its right eye. It topples backward, blood oozing from its mouth onto the snow. But I get the worst of it. The hand that did the deed explodes into pain.
Clutching my ruined hand as I start back toward the door, I hear something crunch under my foot and pause, bending to pick up a single rose, real by the smell of it. It’s encased in plastic with a card that reads, “For a loving wife and mother on this special day.” I turn and throw it onto the thing’s chest before continuing back up the steps and into the doorway. With a grateful sigh, I enter the dimly lit hall and pull the door shut.
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