INDELICATE INCIDENTS

Demons come in different forms.

Note: Chapters one and two of INDELICATE INCIDENTS, a horror novel I’ve been working on for a hot minute. Hoping to get to the final draft by 2025.

1.

I’m waiting.

Been waiting a while. The envelope sits outside the door to my building. Name written on it in big block letters. Ink blotchy in one corner.

I have terrible handwriting.

The letter inside the damp white envelope is typed.

I sit across the street in a small, sad excuse for a park. Drink a cup of coffee.Pretend to read the newspaper. Ignore the fine mist falling from a grey, uncompromising sky.

A baseball cap hides my wild hair. Sunglasses obscure my face.

I sit on a splintered park bench. Sip lukewarm coffee. Wait. Fidget with the sleeves of a jacket I stole from Grady.

I’ve never been good at waiting.

It’s been at least an hour. I won’t let myself check the time. My nose is cold.

A short young man dressed like a finance executive turns down the street. One of the usuals. Long gait and face too young for the business he’s in.

I’m surprised he’s lasted this long. Never goes into the building to check on me. Idiot.

He glances at the front of the apartment. Sees the envelope. Keeps walking.

I wait.

A few seconds later he walks by from the opposite direction. Smooth operator. Looks around. Walks with a casual, innocent air.

Obvious as a bloodstain on a wedding dress.

I look down. Stare at the top of my cup.

After a few seconds, I look up.

The agent and the envelope are gone.

I toss my empty cup in the trash. Fight a shiver

Right.

This is it.

As I walk back into my building, I wonder who’s watching me now.

---

2.

It was the first day.

There was a beautiful dead boy singing on the radio. Jakob wouldn’t stop staring at me.

Jakob had these big brown eyes. A whisper away from black. Made him look like a cartoon character. Sad puppy on a cheap calendar.

Jakob could go a long time without blinking. I was always jealous.

Sometimes it was hard to meet people’s eyes.

Jakob had been staring at me for forty-five minutes. Stubborn little bastard. He’d sigh from time to time, to break the tedium. Otherwise just stared. He’d blinked about six times.

I ignored him. We’d been driving for hours. There were another three more before we stopped for the night. My back ached. My ass was numb.

I didn’t need the added annoyance of entertaining a sullen teenager.

Let alone a traumatized one.

Highwire act of functionality.

Ever been to the circus Jake? Highwire acts and knife throwing and wrist cutting and the ringmaster gets eaten by the clowns.

Jakob glared at me. As if I wanted to be here. In the heat and misery. The humid, oppressive stench of resentment.

The last time he’d said a word was when he got into the car.

‘You ready?’ I asked.

‘I hate you,’ he said.

Since then conversation had lagged.

It was fine. I didn’t mind silence.

Thoughts empty and head quiet. Focused on the road ahead and the music being whisked away by the wind and nothing, nothing else.

No screaming no crying no snapping tearing ripping splintering shattering bleeding breaking

Stop.

Focus on the road.

The past few weeks were nothing but fucking noise. Arguing and shouting and talking with confused police. Distant relatives who kept hanging up the phone.The coroner. The funeral home.

The men in the dark suits and weird getups. The ones with the walkie talkies and the guns. Some dressed in military gear. Most in suits.

Eventually it all melted into a staticky ball of howling noise punctuated by pain.

Fuck Jakob. Let him stare. Kid could stare all he fucking wanted.

Didn’t bother me one bit.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead and flicked the beads out the open window. Thought I’d fixed the air conditioner, but after half an hour of driving it gave the saddest little whimper and died.

I sympathized.

‘I want to go home.’

I jerked the wheel at Jakob’s voice. Swerved down the empty road. He didn’t blink. It felt deliberate. An attack.

‘Jesus fuck!’ I smacked the heel of my hand against the AC. Stab of pain vibrated up my arm.

I focused on the road. The hot vinyl seat stuck to my back. Listened to the music. Tried to go back to the quiet, safe space.

‘Don’t ignore me,’ said Jakob.

‘I’m not ignoring you,’ I said. ‘I’m driving.’

He folded arms across his skinny chest. Jutted his chin out.

For a second looked just like our dad. Proud and stubborn. Unreadable and unexpected. Dark eyes tinged with something cold and cruel.

‘I want to go home,’ he said, enunciating like a rude waiter going over the menu.

‘Heard you the first time,’ I said.

‘You didn’t answer me,’ he said.

‘Wasn’t going to,’ I said.

‘Seriously?’ asked Jakob, tone scornful. I felt the tips of my ears turning red.

Fucking teenagers.

I turned up the radio. Jakob turned it down.

I raised the volume. Jakob turned the radio off.

I batted at his hands ineffectively, my eyes on the road.

‘Stop it,’ I said. ‘I’m driving.’

Jakob threw himself back into the seat. I put the radio on at low volume.

‘This isn’t fair,’ he said. Put every ounce of thirteen-year-old surliness into three words.

‘Okay,’ I said. From the corner of my eye I could see his frown. Cold in the thick heat.

‘Okay,’ he repeated.

‘I’m not arguing,’ I said. ‘You’re right. It’s not fair. I agree. What do you want me to do?’

We were running low on gas. I coaxed my ancient Jeep faster down the desert road. Jakob leaned towards me, face twisted and earnest.

‘Turn the car around,’ he said. ‘We’ll go back.’

‘To what?’ I asked with a laugh. Empty lot. Crime scene tape everywhere. Blackened ground. Flames and ash.

‘I don’t know,’ said Jakob. ‘We’ll just go back. We can go back.’ Almost pleading. ‘They can’t stop us.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing left. We need to go.’

‘No we don’t,’ says Jakob. He folded into the fetal position. Curled up in the seat. Abandoned cat on its way to the pound.

‘You just don’t want to go back,’ he said. ‘You didn’t want to be there in the first place.’ I bit the inside of my cheek. Hard.

‘Can you stop?’ My voice came out high, girlish. I cleared my throat.

‘I hate this!’ shouted Jakob. He kicked his feet like a goddamn infant.

‘Get over it,’ I said. ‘Go back to sulking. You’re giving me a headache.’

‘You’re such an asshole!’ said Jakob, shrill and shaky.

I whipped my head around, aghast.

‘You watch your mouth!’ I shouted. Didn’t realize I was shouting, but there I was. Hollering in a car at a kid.

Visions of my parents, crammed into a shitty tin can with my wailing herd of brothers. Stink of booze on their breaths. Me buckling up the boys tight.

I crushed the memory.

‘You’re not the boss of me!’ yelled Jakob, his face crimson. I could see the violence on the edges of his mouth and in his endless almost black eyes.

He wanted to hit me.

‘I damn well am the boss of you, you little brat,’ I said.

‘You’re not Mom or Dad!’ Jakob snapped.

The car was thunderously silent. It had a new, taut texture. Grated against my skin. Sandpaper cheese grater.

Jakob looked out the window.

We drove for a few miles. We passed the skeleton of a dead tree. In the distance, thunder rumbled.

‘This is bullshit,’ Jakob muttered under his breath. His eyes were wet. Kept wiping under them with his knuckles.

Angry about crying. Angry I was there to see him cry.

A gas station rose up in the distance like a shitty mirage

‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘But it’s our bullshit.’