American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,175

that swell and deflate like concertinas.

Yet he does not react one bit. “When you’re all alone, that’s when you see who you really are,” he says. “And they were alone. But they were weak. I feel no regret. I feel nothing, anymore.” His red teeth snap forward and snag a nugget of flesh on her arm. Red drops leap up his cheek like dolphins playing in ocean waves.

She falls on him then, all teeth and fingernails, and the two slash and snap and tear at one another like rabid animals, though the damage she does is by far the greater: her teeth leave flaps of skin missing from his cheek, neck, shoulder. He grabs the razor handle protruding from her shoulder and rips it out. A fan of blood marks her out-of-tune Wurlitzer. He intends to send the razor deep into her belly, but she brings her other palm down and strikes his chin.

A torrential gout of blood begins pouring from his mouth, which is now lopsided, suggesting that the connective tissue of half his jaw has partially snapped, causing a massive hemorrhage in his throat. Yet even though nearly every cavity in his head and chest is now filling with blood, she can still see his teeth open and shut and his tongue thrash about as he mouths, “Do it. Do it. Do it,” with a burst of gore gurgling up each time as he tries to force his breath through his ruined mouth.

She drops him. When he hits the ground, he immediately begins crawling toward the pearl-handled razor. Mrs. Benjamin, as if remembering a pie she has in the oven, turns and walks to the kitchen, so she cannot see his labored crawl across the floor, which becomes more and more difficult as each alveolus in his lungs fills with fluid.

The man has grasped the razor and is wheeling around, looking for more flesh to slash, when the front of Mrs. Benjamin’s KitchenAid tilt-head stand mixer connects with the crown of his skull. Immediately he goes limp. She brings it down again and again, like an otter crushing a sea urchin. On the third hit, the structural integrity of his skull gives away entirely, the hat (which is now quite red) deflating under the force of the mixer. She keeps smashing the remains of his head against the floor until something ropy and translucent becomes visible among all the shards and viscera, as if there is a jellyfish swimming in the puddle of red. She glimpses tiny, serrated teeth, many writhing tendrils, minuscule suckers…

She keeps striking it. Again and again and again.

Finally there is a reedy cry, like that of a monstrous cricket searching for a mate, and the wriggling translucent thing trembles and turns to white foam whose bubbles coast through the oceans of blood.

It is gone.

Mrs. Benjamin drops the mixer.

She has killed him. She has really killed him.

It could not be done. Mother said it could not be done. Yet here he is, this stranger, rapidly cooling at her feet.

What does one do, she thinks, after committing fratricide?

Her dress is black and red with blood. She is checking her wounds (something she has not ever had to do before) when the windows flash white, and she sees a bolt of lightning shoot down on the far side of Wink.

She marvels at it, and whispers, “No,” though the word has not left her lips when the crash of thunder splits the air.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The world is alive with cheeps and chitters, reels and ribbits. Are they insects, she wonders, or something else? Why have I never noticed them before? Parson’s lame feet scuff the stony ground as she hauls him forward. The moon floods the alleyways with light the shade of Pepto-Bismol; Mona’s eyes search the fence-board cracks for movement and listening ears; somewhere a nighthawk twitters and falls abruptly silent. Perhaps even the animals know it is wise to be away.

Mona takes a right, back toward Mrs. Benjamin’s house. “What are you doing?” Parson says. “I said we must get away.”

“The truck,” says Mona, and points. The black monstrosity is still sitting just around the corner from the house. She is glad she didn’t park right outside.

As she helps Parson in, a series of huge crashes echo through the street. It sounds like someone busting apart furniture. She looks back at Mrs. Benjamin’s house, but sees nothing. Lights blink on in the front rooms of houses all around her. Doors open, casting golden pathways onto yards and