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Heavy raindrops poured down on the young man’s face as he stared at the door to the small, suburban house. He promised his mother to repair the damage his stepfather had done but once again he didn’t get to it. He avoided this house like it was hazardous when possible. The thought of just leaving once again without knocking crossed his mind. But he really needed these darn documents.
„Ray, there you are!” He flinched and turned around to the gravel road, leading up to the garage where the family stored their trash bins and parked the dented Ford shoebox. His mother stood there with a bag of plastic in in one hand and a dying cigarette in the other hand, her eyes sparkling with a mixture of relief and anger about his long absence and something third he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Fear maybe. No. Guilt.
Her long, dirty nightgown was collecting water at the seam, but she only focused on her son, waiting for a sort of explanation, apology maybe even.
„Here I am”, he stated in a dry tone and started walking towards her. He only took a few steps, before noticing what was causing the guilt in her eyes. The neckline of her gown was high but not high enough to hide the bruises. He immediately stopped in his tracks and stared at her blankly.
“It’s not what it looks like, I really was a bitch that evening and-“, she started but Raymonds hands shot up in a defensive motion.
“You said he bettered himself and got sober! I don’t want to hear it! And what’s with Minnie?!”
“He did! He doesn’t drink anymore and this was just.. It was the first time in weeks! Minnie is.. fine. You know how she is lately. She.. needs new schoolbooks though.”
He promised himself to not get mad again. Never get mad again at the abuse his mother was facing, while she did nothing to change her situation. He promised himself to not care anymore. But here he was again, feeling his blood boil and his disappointment and frustration get ahold of him. Wishing he could just shoot that damned man right between the eyes. But he also knew that it wouldn’t change anything. That she’d crumble at her addiction to nicotine, alcohol and most importantly giving up control and that she’d just find another pig to cater to. Though Raymond wouldn’t know if the other monster of a man wouldn’t be more efficient with his threats. Kill her eventually. Kill his half-sister too. So, he stayed. And let his anger out on the fragile woman in front of him that had given herself and her children up a long time ago.
Silence fell upon the two figures standing in the rain and Raymond wondered if he should just leave again. But once again the documents crossed his mind, so he sighed. ‘One last time’, he thought for the millionth time, pulled out a wad of notes and handed it to her.
“Here. For the schoolbooks.” They both knew that that wasn’t true. “And to keep him calm.”
As long as the pig was almost satisfied with his material needs, his violence minimized to a few outbursts a month. So that was what he did. Cater to him. And every time he felt like a bigger bigot than before.
“Yes, schoolbooks”, she smiled crookedly, took the money, and hastily stuffed it in her gown.
“Do you know where my birth certificate is? I need it”, he cut the silence again and the face of his mother lit up a little. Since he was barely home, she always was eager to help him with these sorts of things. Little alibis, so she wouldn’t feel as failing as she was. To hold over his head and guilt trip him when it got difficult.
“Sure honey, I’ll take a look”, she smiled, threw the bag of plastic in the bin, and made her way to the hind door, followed by her teenaged son.
The smell of canned ravioli and cheap wine greeted him at the doorstep, and he shivered a little bit at the warm air that blew from the old fireplace in the crammed living room.
“Oh, his majesty is honoring us with his presence”, echoed from the armchair in the corner of the room, drowning out the mumbled sounds from the TV opposite.
“Hey Minnie.” Raymond managed to smile a little bit, even though he absolutely didn’t feel like emitting anything positive, when he saw his younger sister sitting in the chair, wineglass in hand and face plastered in cheap makeup. Every day she looked more like their mother and he couldn’t stop himself from resenting her for it.
“I’m going now then”, she announced and got up, revealing her skimpy outfit in its full form. She glared at her brother, knowing he wanted to say something. How a respectable young woman wouldn’t wear something like that. In reality that wasn’t what actually bothered him. It bothered him where she was wearing it to. That she’d been drinking already before leaving to go see men that were twice her age. That she was getting more and more invested in this weird circle of people, who the old ladies of the town swore, were seen vandalizing churches and terrorizing good people.
“Does Dale know yo-“, he started but got cut off by her immediately.
“Dale”, she mocked him, “is in a bar as well. And he doesn’t care where his daughter goes, as long as he’s with his pals. Also: you aren’t an angel neither. Where do you even sleep lately? Under a bridge? So, stay in your lane.”
“In a bar? I thought he’s sober”, Raymond barked at his mother which angrily glared at the young girl in front of her. In response, Minnie let out a screech-like laugh and grabbed her purse.
“Yeah, and I’m Santa”, she rolled her eyes and before anyone could stop her, she was out the door.
Again, silence fell over the two. Not that he had actually believed her in the first place but her lying so blatantly still got him furious. Why was this his responsibility? Why didn’t she finally do something? Anything? He looked at the pile of red and yellow envelopes on the side table and once again realized how he was contributing to this endless circle. How he always saved his mother’s ass, when Dale got them in too much debt. How she didn’t learn because she didn’t have to. And how he risked his neck for all this crap by moonlighting.
Couldn’t she say something? Somehow her passive silence angered him more than her shitty excuses. It reflected everything about her he hated. Passive and pliant.
“The certificate”, he reminded her, his voice ice cold as always when she lied to him.
“Oh yeah yeah”, she nodded and hurried upstairs, just to come down a few minutes later with the certificate in a pale envelope. Before Raymond could pull his hand back after taking the paper, his mother grabbed his hand and stared into his eyes, a pleading look in them.
“Don’t wait a whole week again before showing up. I’m worried about you. I really am. I know it’s hard, but we really need the money. Think about Minnie. If we get rid of this last big pile of checks then Dale will be able to focus on himself and work and Minnie can study ag-“
Raymond made a hissing sound and abruptly drew his arm out of her grip.
“I said I don’t want to hear it anymore! Studying, yeah sure. Never seen a fourteen-year-old more eager to study.”
The nicotine-yellowed carpet made a sound like morass when he stepped over it with his muddy boots to get to the front door.
“No wait”, she stumbled behind him trying to stop him from vanishing into the dark corners of River Fields again, but he wasn’t her little boy anymore and towered her by nearly a foot. Her pathetic attempts to leech off of him just to keep her fractured household somewhat alive, was disgusting him once again.
“I can’t do this anymore”, he spit at her and felt the dizziness of a déjà vu crawling up his neck, “I’m not paying your stupid bills anymore. I’m not contributing to this fucking broken household anymore. I told you a million times! I’m not acting happy family anymore!”
He grabbed the door and swung it open, creaking under the dried-out hinges.
“Please Ray, you owe me this! Don’t leave me here like this”, she yelled at him, panic in her voice. If she would’ve stepped a centimeter further, the slammed door, would’ve possibly broken her nose.
Never again, he thought to himself, never again am I stepping into this hellhole.
But he said that a thousand times. And deep down he knew that someday he would crumble again. For now, pushing the lengths of his absence was the best progress he was able to do.
The sudden flood of sunlight made him groan and cover his eyes with one hand.
“Hey, wake up!” The voice of his friend made him finally come to his senses.
“What? Let me sleep man, the alarm hasn’t even gotten off.”
“Your sister is here. She’s waiting in the hallway”, Josh cleared his throat.
The tone of his voice let Raymond immediately sit up straight on the couch and pull the wool blanket aside.
“What does she want?”, he asked while pulling his pants up. He hadn’t been home for nearly three weeks now. That was definitely a record.
“I honestly don’t know. She’s hysteric, I didn’t understand what she was saying really”, he answered nervously, while Raymond was already on his way out.
Hysteric was an understatement. The young girl looked like she was about to explode. Her mascara was running down her cheeks like trails of petroleum and she looked like she didn’t shower or comb her hair in days. She had her fuzzy Minnie Mouse purse clutched to her chest, which completed his fear that something was seriously wrong. She only dug out that thing she got her nickname after when she was extremely upset.
“Oh, thank God you’re here!”, she sniveled and grabbed him with one of her ice-cold hands. Even though they were half siblings they never really got along. Her coming running to him crying was alarming.
“What is going on?! Did you get in trouble?”, he pressed and shoved her into the apartment to make her sit down somewhere.
“No! No, it’s not me! It’s mom”, she answered, her voice cracking, while she was succumbing to her sobbing, trying to catch her breath. Minnie had a short temper but wasn’t exactly one to be phased like this easily. Raymond tried his best to not get infected by her panic.
“Ok breath, breath. Now look at me, you have to concentrate, ok? I can’t do anything if I don’t know what’s going on. Is she in the hospital?”
“No! It’s... she killed the dog.”
Raymond stared at her blankly for a short moment, processing what just came out of her mouth.
“She.. killed the dog? Why?”
“I don’t know. She’s going batshit! A few days after you left, she started to behave weirdly. I thought that might just be one of her short temper tantrums. But this is different. It’s gone so far that even Dale doesn’t yell at her anymore. She smashed in the TV after they had an argument and .. tried to bite him like a fucking rabid animal when he was coming close to her. I have never seen her like that, you know what she’s like! Something is wrong, I don’t recognize her anymore! You gotta get home!”
Raymond finally got his sister to sit down at the kitchen table and closed the door behind him. He trusted Josh to some extent, but some things were just better dealt with privately. Generally, Raymond just wasn’t the biggest people person.
“Ok ok, it’s fine. It’s alright. I will handle this”, he promised her as calmly as possible. Maybe she was on some kind of drugs? Or maybe she even combusted under this horrid marriage and family and finally snapped? Maybe this was the beginning of her realizing what she had to change?
It sounded twisted but Raymond couldn’t stop himself from feeling a spark of hope in his stomach.
“You really have to get home”, Minnie sniffled again but now a lot calmer. His confidence let her reevaluate the situation again.
“I have to go to his appointment today. If I don’t, I’ll lose points in my finals. That’s until 3pm, after that I will get straight home. Go to school and wait for me. We will go home together. Until that, try to focus on your classes, ok? Just this morning. Maybe she has even calmed down until we get home.”
Minnie didn’t seem to be happy about him delaying his appearance, even if it was just by a few hours. But she wiped the last tears from her eyes and nodded in reluctant agreement. She didn’t want to make him change his mind completely overall.
He had to admit that, even though Minnie generally was a reasonable person, he didn’t believe that her reaction was proportionate to the situation. But when they pulled up on the slim gravel road on their bikes, he immediately felt something was off. Maybe it was the dark windows. Not a single lamp had been lit inside, even though coal-black clouds were darkening the sky above the neighborhood. Maybe it was the suffocating silence that crept towards them. No radio or TV noises, no rustling of plates or creaking steps. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath. He tried not to show his malaise but felt that Minnie sensed it too.
Raymond tossed his bike onto the front yard and made his way to the backdoor, followed by his sister. They didn’t speak a word when he pulled out his key and stepped inside. A wave of sweet putrid stench crashed over him, and he had to press his clenched fist against his lips to not vomit on the carpet.
“Is that... the dog? Haven’t you buried him?”, he turned to his pale sister who just shrugged, as allowing words to leave her mouth would’ve also meant allowing the contents of her stomach to leave.
“Hey mom, I’m home”, Raymond shouted, still not having moved an inch. He felt sweat build up on his forehead, as the house laid still. Like a cowering predator, waiting for its chance. “Dale?!”
Still no answer.
“This is stupid, where are they?! Don’t just stand there!”, Minnie snapped at him as the tense atmosphere made her fear switch to anger and annoyance. She pushed her brother aside an inch and stomped towards the kitchen. “MOM! DAD?!”
Raymond didn’t even try to stop her, got annoyed at himself for his reaction. Now he was the one being sensitive? This was ridiculous. Yes, all of this was weird but when was his family ever normal?
“I’ll look upstairs”, he mumbled and made his way to the stairs. The rotten smell intensified with every step he took. At the top of the stairs, he stopped and pulled the collar of his sweatshirt over his mouth. His eyes wandered over the white painted wooden doors in the hallway. One to his and his sister’s room, one to the bathroom and one to their parents’ bedroom.
“Hello?” Again, anger grew inside of him, as he just stood there, unable to move. The hair on his arms stood up as the most primal part of himself sensed a danger he couldn’t fathom.
“Fuck this”, he pressed between his teeth and made a step towards his parents’ bedroom. As he got closer, he noticed that the door wasn’t completely shut. Through the gap he could see the lower half of the king size bed, a pair of feet resting on the duvet.
“Mom?”
As he slowly opened the door his blood froze. A high-pitched scream behind him made him finally realize, that Minnie had followed him upstairs.
“Oh my God!”, she creamed and gripped her hair. Raymond spun around and pushed her out of sight, down the hallway.
“Get out of here!”, he shouted at her, gagging for a second, not from the stench but from the raw fear that made his stomach turn.
“Holy shit! Holy shit! What happened?! How?! Why did you let this happen?! Why did yo-“ “GET OUT! Get the police!”, he bellowed, and she finally obeyed, sprinting down the stairs out of the front door. Raymond slowly turned back to the room. Every fiber in his body screamed at him to run, get out but something pulled him even closer. Slowly, he took a step into the bedroom.
Dale, or what was left of him, laid on the ground between bed and window, explaining why Raymond couldn’t see him through the half-opened door. His bloated body ended in a shredded stump, which used to be his neck. Pieces of his head were scattered all over the floor, walls, even the ceiling.
The feet on the bed belonged to his mother. Her head and thorax were intact, but her stomach was showing a gaping hole, lacerated ends of flesh grinning back at him. In her right arm laid the old shotgun Dale always kept in a cabinet under the kitchen-sink.
Raymond immediately knew she did it. He didn’t check for a pulse. Dale was lost anyway and his mother even more so. Even though she might have survived the injury on her stomach for a while, her flesh already began to rot away. Greyish parts of skin were sacking from her face, like she died weeks ago. If he hadn’t been standing under immense shock, he wouldn’t have been able to bear the putrid smell leaking out of her cadaver. He had to stare at her, as if he could contain whatever sinister fluids streamed from her by locking eyes with the cadaver.
The abrupt movements of the alarm clock on the nightstand punched like needles in his eardrums and seemed to slow with every second. Tick.. Tock…. Tick……. Tock.
Why did you let this happen?! Shot through his foggy brain. How did this situation escalate that badly in such a short amount of time? Maybe if he would’ve just stayed or come home sooner, then-
“Why did you leave me here?”
Raymonds eyes widened, and he stumbled back, hitting the wall behind the bed. The corpse of his mother had turned her face to him and stared at him with a furious expression. Her former soft blue eyes were glowing yellow in her sunken eye sockets. A part of rotten lip fell onto the mattress as she bared her teeth.
“This is all your fault!”
Never in his life had he run so fast. Not even, when he got chased by the pitbull of the neighbors, because he climbed over their fence. His heart seemed to explode any second and his legs carried him down the hallway out of the front door, onto the yard where he finally vomited his lunch onto the sickly green grass. Thank God, he thought, thank God I pushed Minnie out of that room.
They didn’t inherit much but it was enough to keep going. While Minnie was barely home and getting herself in increasing trouble, Raymond finished High School and got a scholarship for a Mortician Degree at a local college. She never said anything, but he knew that she was disgusted by him, by his decision to work with the Deceased. After all they had seen. And still, they sticked together.
If he would have been honest with himself, he knew deep down this was his form of self-flagellation. Trying to expiate the death of half his family. Trying to form a new association to the smell of decaying flesh that was engraved so deeply in his brain. He thought, someday, he could forget. Someday the picture of his rotting mother wouldn’t pop up every time he smelled something decomposing.
And it got better. It got easier. He still wasn’t much of a talker, didn’t trust people but his business was going well and most nights he could sleep. Even Minnie arranged with his job. And due to her lack of a high school diploma and her depression which haunted her especially in the months of winter, where she wouldn’t leave her bed for days on end, she helped around the mortuary at times. Cleaning the windows, cooking for the employees. It was a good life for a while.
But then May of 1984 rolled around, and the same sensation of dread came back. As he entered the mortuary on the sunny Tuesday morning, he instantly recognized the sinister crackling in the air. It was even more intense than when he got to his parents’ house in the sixties. And it was seeping from David, his employee. David felt it too. For the first time in his life Raymond was sure, that he didn’t hallucinate what happened with the corpse of his mother.
The process of possession went fast. That’s what Raymond was sure of now. It was some sort of demonic possession.
After five days David was completely gone. His clear moments didn’t come back and in a last fight Raymond pushed him into the crematorium and burned him alive. The screams and punches against the heating metal of the door were added to the archives of what he saw when he closed his eyes. Memories that wouldn’t let him rest.
It took Raymond half a day to get up from the cold tiles of the cold storage to clean up the mess.
A year later it was James, and he couldn’t stop it. Andrea, he couldn’t stop it. He felt cornered, like his time was up soon. Every time someone finally saw what he saw, they died shortly after. He was all alone, and the malignancy was creeping closer every day. He felt that it was clung to him. Whatever crawled in the dark, it was stuck to him, following him, and harming everyone around him.
He couldn’t tell Minnie, that he killed three people. Rationally he knew that they were gone way before he ended their mortal shells, but he also knew that Minnie wouldn’t understand. He felt so hopeless, so lonely. And still, he knew that he had to push her away, before it would be her, that he had to burn.
“If you fire me, I’ll end up on the streets!”
Raymond tried to calm her down by raising his hands in a defensive motion, but Minnie wouldn’t sit back down on the sofa of her tiny apartment.
“After all we’ve been through, you’re seriously firing me?! It is November! You know exactly what this means for me!”
“Minnie, I think this is exactly what you need. A real danger to motivate you. I want you to be indepen-“
“Bullshit!”, she cut him off, clenching her fists. Raymond couldn’t look up at her. He felt bad, yes, but the alternative was way worse. He had to keep her safe, somehow. And after all, he had to focus. Focus on solving this damn curse.
“You just don’t want to spend any money anymore on your stupid, pesty sister. The right motivation, you say, as if it’s that easy!”, she hissed. A short moment of silence. He knew she would never forgive him for his following words, but he also knew that it was necessary.
“Yes, maybe I don’t want to care for my little oh so traumatized sister anymore! I was in that room too, okay?! And I still managed to go to college and do my fucking job! Why is it that I always had, and always have to be my family’s wallet, huh?!”
He got up from the couch as well and stared down at the young woman in front of him. “You are just like mom.”
The slap came faster than he expected, and he gasped for air, not out of pain but surprise.
“How dare you”, Minnie whispered, her voice trembling. Raymond slowly nodded, pressing his lips together.
“Have a good life”, he said in a monotone voice, while sternly walking to the door.
“No! Raymond!” She ran after him. “Don’t leave me here like this!”, she wailed but he shut the door behind himself, drowning out her pleads.
He thought he had been lonely all his life, but this was even worse. The guilt of the people he killed - actively and passively - and now the betrayal of his sister, the only person he was somewhat close to. He didn’t like to admit it, but he missed her painfully.
And he still hired new people. Trying to figure out how to stop it, keeping it under control by keeping it close. He looked in these young peoples faces, praying he didn’t send them to their death. But it stayed calm. He wasn’t naïve anymore, didn’t catch too much hope. But he still enjoyed it. Maybe he would have enough time to do his research to be prepared for the next one. He eyed his employees even more attentively, looking out for every tiny sign that it happened again.
But then the call came. Her voice trembled and he wasn’t sure if it was crying of fear or laughter that made his sister shake on the other end of the line.
“Hey Ray ugh… I really think you should come visit some time soon”, Minnie whispered and Raymonds blood ran cold. No please, he begged, not her. She probably is just sick. She just wants to reconcile.
She still had her apartment. For months they hadn’t been in contact but somehow, she seemed to be able to hold it. As Raymond stepped out of the elevator onto her floor, he felt it seeping from all the cracks in the stone, under the doors and out of the shadows. His hope that he might be wrong decayed with every step he took towards her door. It swung open before he could knock.
“Minnie?”, he yelled and took a step inside.
He knew what they looked like when it happened. Pale skin, sunken in eyes and a crooked posture were often the first changes. But she had been over the edge for a long time. Her yellow eyes pierced right through him as her dark, chapped lips formed an impossibly wide grin.
The door slammed again, cutting off his escape route.
“DON’T call me that!”, she hissed at him, from the stool she was standing on. The rope around her neck wiggled with every word she spat out.
“Please”, he raised his hands and slowly approached her. His heart was pounding up to his throatt and for the first time in decades he felt tears forming in his eyes.
“Maria, I know you’re somewhere inside there. Please don’t. I know you can do it”, he begged.
A gurgling laugh crept out of her throat.
“Oh, now you’re crawling on your knees? After just leaving me here in the drenches? What a silly old man you are.”
“I kept her far from the Mortuary these last months! I kept her safe! This isn’t fair!”, he screamed and grabbed his hair, trying to keep his breathing under control. All the things he went through, all the lives he sacrificed, just for her to end up like this too?!
The room went silent for a second, then Maria started to grin again, her eyes sparkling as if someone had handed her the prettiest cake.
“Oh.. you don’t know it, do you?”
“What?! What do I not know?!”
Maria cackled and let the stool under her feet sway a little from side to side, before looking up at her brother again.
“This isn’t happening because of you. You didn’t bring this onto earth. She did. It is bound to her, well… me. This isn’t your curse, stupid boy. Not yet.”
Then she tripped over the little chair, which had guarded her life so far. He heard her spine crack but still ran up to catch her body. This was the first time Raymond felt it seeping into his own mind.
She kicked, bit and scratched at him but somehow, he was able to strap her down and throw her in the small bathroom where she broke out in hysterical laughter.
Every day he went out to the apartment to feed her, keep her from smashing in her head on the sink or somehow escaping. Every day he tried to keep the shell of his sister mostly uninjured, minimize her pain, and every day he felt the effects on himself of the demon housing in her body grow stronger.
And he knew that it was his fault. Trying to safe her from this fate had pushed her over the edge, finally letting the demon take control.
And he knew that, even though she didn’t do it on purpose, it was his sister’s resentment and darkest wish for vengeance that had transferred this curse onto him now.