Sweets to the Sweet

Everyone awoke from my blood curling scream. This caused my mother and sister to come running into my bedroom early the next morning. The sun hadn't even cleared the horizon yet giving the sky outside my window a dull purple-orange color.

"Bret! Bret you are okay," my mother said shaking me awake. "Bret you were dreaming! You are okay."

My eyes were open, but did not recognize my mother's face as being her own. I looked at my sister Maggie and the look she returned at me was one of fright. I don't know if she saw my mother's death in my eyes or if she saw my death in my eyes, but she knew I had seen something.

"Daddy! Momma! Spiders, but they aren't normal. The blood on his back. He killed you momma." Nothing I said seemed to make sense, but mother understood it.

"Dear Jesus you know," the words were almost inaudible. "It was just a dream baby. Everything will be okay. When it's just the three of us everything will be okay."

"W—where's dad momma?" Maggie asked.

"Hush!" she looked at me and knew I also wanted to know. Then reluctantly, "He's gone to work early. Trying to beat the heat. You know how he gets in the summer."

I had thought my next question was an innocent one, but the reaction that I got from mother told me that it was the worst of all. "Momma where is he working today? In the city?"

Tears began to swell up in her eyes. "No dear he's doing side jobs today. He said he would be over at the Anderson's to fix their mailbox and then—and then over to Johnson's to work on their planter boxes."

I may be seven years old, but I'm not stupid. Even I know that it only takes a day, two at the most to build planter boxes out of brick and here my father has been doing work over there, off and on for two weeks or more.

I was going to make a comment about that but after looking at my mother's tear stained eyes I could see that she too knew this.

"I have to get ready for work baby. Are you going to be okay?"

For my mother's sake I answered, "Yes mommy. I'll be fine."

It was my sister's turn to enter the conversation. "If he needs anything I'll be hear mom. Isn't that right squirt?"

"Yeah she'll be here mommy."

My mother smiled half-heartedly. "Oh Bret you need to be ready once I get off work. We have that follow-up at the doctor's office today. They close at six and I get off at five so we should make it just in time."

"Okay mommy."

I watched mother drive off in her beat-up Chevy and that is when I decided to confront my father about everything. I thought that I knew what was going on.

Maggie had made mother another meal for lunch and asked me if I wanted to go with her to take it to mother, but I declined saying that I was really tired. I had not told a lie because I was indeed very tired I just told myself that it was because of the dream.

When Maggie was gone I fixed myself a sandwich that consisted of two pieces of bread, a thick layer of mayo and a sugar sprinkled on each slice. This was my favorite kind of sandwich because it was straight and to the point.

I sat in the floor of the living room with my sandwich in my hand and a soda between my legs. I was trying to put all the pieces together so when I spoke to my father he would know that he was busted.

"You think you really know what is going on don't you?" the voice came from the screen door and belonged to Marty. "You don't know shit do you."

I was pushing the last two bites of my sandwich into my mouth when he had spoke and had to wash it down with a drink from my soda to reply. "Yes I do know what's going on! I'm not stupid!"

"Yes," he paused. "You are. You think that he's got another life. Another wife perhaps. Maybe another son or daughter? Well you're half right."

I turned my back on him for a second to stand up and when I turned back around he was in the house. I hadn't heard the door open or close. I didn't even hear his steps on the hard floor.

"What do you mean I have it half right?"

Marty laughed, "You saw the marks on his back. Where do you think that he got those? You know what they are, bite marks. I mean look at your arm."

My gaze went down to the bandage on my arm and I quickly tore it free. The mark on my arm looked much like the ones I had seen on my father's back. Had he also been bitten by that spider? He had been. I saw it on his back and the blood coming from his back.

"But you still don't know why do you?"

I shook my head no.

"It's because he wants you and your family. He saw you in that tent and now he wants you." Marty put a hand on my shoulder and leaned in like he was consoling a friend. "I'm telling you this because this isn't the first time he's done this. You aren't the first or the second or third. Every time we come to a new town he picks one family."

"He? Who's this that you are talking about?"

Marty just shook his head and looked back into my eyes. "When did all this start? Where were you? Where were we?"

I thought hard but the buzzing and ringing was back with a vengeance. "We—we were in the tent." Then like dawns first light it hit me, "The boy who would be king. It's him, he's doing this."

"Yes," Marty spoke slowly. "See he's not dead. He hasn't been for thousands of years."

"And now he's after my father?"

"No Bret. He is your father. That is why he has the marks on your father's back. He tried to get to you, but couldn't." He motioned to my arm. "You were too quick for him and he had to take your father."

"No you're lying. You're saying my father is dead? I don't believe you."

"If you don't believe me then follow me." The tone of his voice was challenging me to defy him.

"Where are we going?" Sweat rolled down my face and stung my eyes as we passed through the flimsy screen door. The sun was bright over head beating its heat down upon us.

Marty walked ahead of me and I followed behind matching him step for step. "He's at the Johnson's house now."

I noticed that with each step I took my feet would fall into the impression of his footprints. It was unconscious at first but then it became intentional. The walk was long and the day was hot. The only breeze was that from passing cars and trucks speeding down the road.

"See I tell you this because he will find someone else to infect. Then they will find someone to pass it on to until soon everyone will be like him, an asshole."

This made me chuckle because swearing was still new to me. "Yeah he didn't use to be an asshole." I said the words with such conviction. I was free to say it. "And now he's become the biggest dick.

"He makes my mother cry all the time. I know she wants him to leave. At least I think that she does. I saw it in her eyes this morning." My words drifted off into silence.

"Yeah well that isn't him anymore. It's the boy's influence over him."

"But what can I do?" I asked.

"You have to kill him."

He was running across the street to an alley when he said this and I just stopped in my tracks. "What?"

"No! Not your father, the boy Bret. You have to kill the boy to stop this."

Slowly I followed him into the alley. "What do you mean I have to kill the boy? He looked dead to me already."

"That's how he wants you to see him. See I have never done this before. I have always let him do his thing, but I like you and your family." He moved to a big metal dumpster and started searching around the back of it. "See my mother and step-father know what he does and they let him do it. Now where is tha—oh there it is."

He pulled out his hand from the tall grass and there was something gray in his hands. It was a carpenter's knife. "Now take this. I would do it, but if my parents saw me there then they would think that I had something to do with it."

"What am I suppose to do? Just cut him up? Will that do it?"

"No there is something inside him that you have to kill. You'll know it when you see it." He saw the troubling look on my face and knew that I was about to back out. "Hey if you don't want to do it fine, but let me show you something before you decide."

I put the knife into my pocket and we continued down the alley until we got to a broken wooden fence and that is where Marty was headed. He squeezed through two broken slats of the fence into the backyard and I quickly followed.

The yard was clean and well kept. The grass cut low and the trees trimmed high. There was a swinging bench off to the right and a small garden off to the left. The back porch was covered and tracing the cement porch was freshly made planter boxes. They looked new, but were at least several days old.

There was a couple of ceramic pots that held plants resting on one side of the planter boxes and sitting on the glass table in the center of the porch was my father's tool belt and tool boxes. I looked around but my father was nowhere to be found.

I had also lost track of Marty, but he was the last thing on my mind now. I walked over to the left side of the house and peered down it. My father's truck was parked between the Johnson's house and their neighbor's house, but my father was not there.

That was when I heard the screaming coming from inside. It was coming from a woman and I could hear only two words, "Oh God!"

Someone is killing her, I thought. Then I knew that it was my father. This is what Marty had wanted me to see. He had wanted me to see my father murder this woman so that I would know that it was no longer him, it was the boy who would be king.

I moved with speed born of fear to the back porch to see if I could see inside. The back door was made of stained glass, but in the center was a clear square that I could look through. "Oh God don't!" came another scream much closer.

Staring through the glass my mouth dropped open. My father was standing in the kitchen with a look of pain and concentration on his face and bent in front of him was Mrs. Johnson. She was pressed against the counter with one hand on floating cabinets and the other one the tile counter-top.

The top of the sundress that she wore was hanging from her shoulders and the hem was up around her waist. "No! Not there I have neve—Oh God!"

My father was standing behind her with his jeans and boxers around his ankles. He was thrusting his meat into the woman's behind and she was screaming with each fierce thrust.

"Oh how could you? Yes please more!" Her screams of pain turned to pleasure it seemed to me. Her eyes were closed tightly and her mouth was open letting grunts and whimpers escape. The only time she close her mouth was to bite her lip and when she did I could see blood dripping down her lips. "Oh Bobby yes! Give it to me."

The back of the dress was unzipped and opened. I could see her sweat covered back and my father's fingernails digging into her back as he pulled her back onto his member. He thrust forward to meet her cause a wet slap sound to reverberate.

"Watch his hands and her back and you will see." Marty's voice came from behind me, but I couldn't break my gaze from my father.

His hands were kneading the flesh of her back and then to my astonishment the finger tips slid easily under the skin of her back. It was like he was massaging her back, but with each circular motion the deeper his fingers went into her. There was no blood even though I could see his fingers under her skin.

Then from the top of the crack of her ass something else moved. I was like thin long snakes under her skin. They waved in a fan-like motion the seemed to wrap themselves around the boney hills of her lower back. When they did she screamed again and father pushed deeper into her.

The snake-like tendrils moved up the spine of her back pulsating as they went. I could see them moving back as my father pulled himself out from her bum and then they slithered further up her back when he thrust into her a moment later. She looked back at him as they reached the nape of her neck and I could see that she knew there was something not right about him at this point.

She opened her mouth to say something, but instead of sound coming out a black mass came out instead. They were like tentacles of an octopus, opening and curling around her cheeks and lips.

I jump back trying to get the image out of my head, but they wouldn't leave my mind's eye no matter how far back I went. "See I told you." Marty's voice in my head taunted.

Shaking my head I continued to back up until I hit one of the ceramic pots on the planter box causing it to fall and shatter. The next thing I saw was my father's face in the door's glass window. His eyes were completely black and there was deep anger on his face. I could see something moving just under his skin like it had in Mrs. Johnson's back. This was not my father.

"Jesus Bret! What are you doing?" I'm not sure if I heard him or if that was just the motion his mouth made.

I did not care. I just knew that I had to get out of there before he could catch me and turn me into one of those things. I knew about him now and he would have to silence me before I could tell the world.

So I ran. Squeezed back through the fence and ran down the alley. Where was I going to go? What was I to do? Mother was the first thought I had. I had to tell her what I saw, but then the rational part of my mind kicked in.

"No you can't go to your mother are you fucking insane? He will expect that. He will just say that you don't know what you are talking about and then take from her saying that you are sick or something." Marty's voice was soothing and began to calm be down a bit.

"So what do I do?" I asked him.

"The tent. The boy. You need to go finish this. He's taken your father away from you and your mother is next. You can't let him."

I shot out from the alley like a bullet from a gun. Cars swerved to miss me, but I didn't really seem to notice. If I cut across a field I could be at the carnival in a matter of minutes. I climbed through the wire fence and noticed my father's truck coming down the street and I was filled with fear once again. He had caught up to me sooner than I had thought he would.

Through the fence I breathed a sigh of relief, because he would have to take the long way around. That would buy me a couple of minutes to get to the tent and kill the boy. I glanced back and saw something else. Black shaped that I recognized as the black spiders were at the edge of the field and headed after me.

Seeing them my feet got tripped up and I fell. They were fast closing the distance by half before I could get back to my feet. "Shit! Shit! Fuck!" I screamed running again.

I remembered the dream of the spiders crawling over me and biting my mouth. This did the trick and my feet sped up to a speed I never knew I was capable. I could hear the dried grass and weeds behind me being broken and the clicking from their many legs as they chased me, but I was too fast for them.

I told myself that they couldn't catch me in time. I reached into my pocket pulling out the carpenter's knife and holding it tight in my hand.

Marty's voice came again, "Good thinking. Once you make it to the tent you won't have that much time. As you can see he knows you are coming. Kill him and anyone that gets in your way."

My head was pounding and then there was that ringing that I have come accustomed to. The burning in my muscles was intensified by the heat from the sun. My lungs gasped for breath, but still I ran. There were dark clouds building on the other side of the tree line, but they didn't provider relief from the heat yet. Ahead of me was a thin line of trees and brush and I knew that this was the final obstacle.

On the other side of those trees was the clearing where the carnival lay. The boy's tent would be the closest one to me. It would be the last one for the thing that looks like my father who would be coming from the road.

My eyes scanned the line of brush ahead of me looking for an opening that I could shoot for and I found one. I had to adjust my direction a bit, but didn't lose any speed. That's when I realized that this was going to be close because just before I got the brush I would have to go through fifteen or twenty yards of loose sand. That would slow me down, but I hoped that it would also slow down the spiders that chased behind me.

The sand was five feet away. Then it was three feet away. Then I jumped hoping to lessen the distance and that was my mistake. When I landed in the sand my feet sunk in the soft sand to my ankles and I had to spend a few precious seconds kicking myself out while still trying to move forward. Always moving forward, but now I was moving at a snails pace.

I glanced back and could see the first spider had made it to the edge of the sand. My feet never stopped running, "They are almost on you! Get moving!"

I pressed myself forward and was rewarded with a small burst of speed. I was still moving slowly, but at least I was moving now. With each step I took my speed increased until I reached the edge of the brush and the beginning of hard ground again.

My shoes were filled with sand but I couldn't stop to shake it out. I pushed passed the thorn bushes and clawed at the trees, always moving forward. They were right on my heels and I could feel them wanting to leap at me, but I was still just out of their reach.

I tore through the brush cutting my legs and my arms, but I didn't feel it. The only thing I could feel was the burning in my legs and my chest from running, but I couldn't stop just yet. Not when I was so close.

I started passing trees, finding animal trails that helped me evade the closing in spiders. I could see daylight through the trees and shot through on trail that lead out. I could hear the trees shaking behind me and knew that the spiders were jumping from tree to tree hoping to catch me but they were still too far behind. I leaned down and drove through a small opening and when I did a spider finally leapt after me, but it got caught in the mass of vines that was crawling under.

"You did it! Good job!" Marty praised.

I was out and always moving forward. I could hear the spiders all hit the same mass of brush that the first had. They had to crawly up and over it to get passed because it was almost too thick to crawly through and they were too impatient to try to take the time to navigate it.

The carnival was just ahead. It was less than a football field away and I knew that I was going to make it. I brought to mind the inside of the tent trying to plan the attack.

"If you go through the front entrance you will just have to make one turn to the left and then you are there. If you try to go under the canvas then you have to do it fast because they will be on you in an instant."

"Yeah you're right, but what about your parents? Won't they be watching the entrance?" I asked Marty.

I could hear my father's truck and looked around for it. He hadn't parked it in the make-shift parking lot, but was driving down the field toward me. The wind had picked up and was carrying clouds of dirt that the truck threw up.

"Fuck there's your father. No my parents will be tending the other exhibits. I hope. But you can't worry about that now."

"You're right. My father will be on me before the spiders get here. The front entrance it is."

I could see the tent just ahead. I ran around the side to the front, knife still in hand, and saw the entrance. There was a sign draped across the entrance that told visitors that this exhibit was closed.

The entrance was open except for the sign and I pushed passed it like it was the finish line of a marathon. There was a hallway that spiraled off to the left and I followed it into the darkness. The dirty smell filling my tortured lungs caused me to start to cough.

There were pinholes of light streaming through the old canvas tent and I was reminded of a movie where the hero was running down a tunnel. There was a monster waiting for him at the end of the tunnel and it knew that he was coming.