American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,172

for hours. I think that’s why she went… mad. She wasn’t schizophrenic. She saw something in it. And maybe something saw her. Maybe one of you.”

“If this is true,” says Parson, “then it was kept secret from me.”

“And me,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “I always thought it was all Mother’s doing. But a woman? A human woman? How could she—” Mrs. Benjamin freezes, but does not stop exhaling, turning her last word into to a sustained, croaky eeeeeeee. Her wide eyes swivel in their sockets quickly enough to be revolting.

“What is it?” asks Parson.

She lets the eeeeeeee taper off, then draws a slow breath. “Someone is here,” she whispers.

“Who?” says Mona.

Mrs. Benjamin’s eyes resume wheeling at such a rate that Mona thinks she can hear wet clicks issuing from the lining tissues. “I do not know,” she says. “But they are here, on this property. They have announced themselves to me. They do not even try to hide themselves.”

“But you do not recognize them?” asks Parson.

“No,” says Mrs. Benjamin.

Despite their emotionless, limp faces, the two appear very perturbed by this. Mona supposes that their kind—or the things in their heads—must have a manner of communicating their presence to one another. And whoever is here is being impolite, and refusing to identify themselves.

Mona sees her Glock resting on the bedside table, and reaches out to pick it up.

“No,” says Mrs. Benjamin.

“No what?”

“That would do no good.”

“A bullet between the eyes would do no fucking good?”

“You presume,” says Mrs. Benjamin, “that it has eyes. Which might not necessarily be the case.”

Mona pauses to reflect on this.

“Help him,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “Help him move. Help him get out. Help him run, very fast. They aren’t here for you. They’re here for me, I think.”

“Well, fuck,” says Mona, and she grabs Parson by one arm, pulls him to his feet, and partially throws him over her shoulder. She’s had a lot of practice at this in her day. “But don’t you want help?” she asks.

“Of course I want help,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “But help is not something you can give. Not with this. This is—let’s say—a family matter, or so I suspect. And you would not hold up well during our squabbles.”

She silently flits out of the room and down the hall like a magenta ghost, leaving Mona to limp out the back door and unceremoniously dump Parson over the fence. He groans upon contact with the grass, while Mona hops over, squats, and watches.

Parson grabs her ankle: “No, no. You do not want to even be near for this.”

She thinks. Then she gathers him up and leaves.

The sun is crawling back under a blanket of black. Swallows skim the dancing grasses in the park, snatching moths out of the air. Two black squirrels in a spruce hear her walk out to her porch, freeze, and swivel to watch, ears perked and pointed. Mrs. Benjamin outwaits them: after three minutes, they snake away. Then the streetlamps come on, with one rusting malcontent taking a full minute to persuade its bulb to shine.

Mrs. Benjamin stands on her porch staring at the street. Once the entity that wore this body before her sat in this spot and watched lightning weave down from the sky like penguins snatching fish. And though this scene is much more quiet, much more calm, it is no less deadly.

Mrs. Benjamin sits.

Waits.

Watches.

And then:

Her eye registers movement, then identifies a white hat in the darkness below the spruce.

“Well, come out then,” she says.

The figure does not move.

“Come on then,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “Be polite. Don’t just stand there.”

But he does not move.

“Come out!” she commands.

The white hat tips to the side, just a touch. She imagines its wearer is pleased to see her so frustrated.

“What do you want?” she asks, more softly.

A long pause.

“What?” she asks.

“For you,” says a voice, “to stop.”

“Stop what?” she asks.

The hat slowly teeters to the right.

“Such a nice house,” says the voice. “Such a nice yard. Such pretty flowers. Good porch. Good place to put your heels up, if your hips permit. If I were you—and I am not—I would wish to spend many an evening here.”

“Kindly get to your point.”

The hat tips back and forth like a ship on turbulent seas. “I wonder,” says the voice, “why one would ever want to leave this place. No. No, one shouldn’t want to. Better to stay here. Stay here, on your porch, in your town. And do not come out to the wilderness. Leave what is there alone.”

Mrs. Benjamin stands.