Somehow I followed her, my leg muscles propelling me forward against the protests of my wildly screaming brain. My foot, too, sunk into the flies. They felt soft, rubbery, slippery.
We walked to the middle of the room, moving slowly, then stopped. Here, there was a clearing on the floor, a space, and we could see the vague form of an unfinished clay sculpture lying on the ground. It was maybe six feet long and three feet wide, with no definite shape or features. Then the flies rippled over it in a tide, thousands of tiny fly-legs scraping against the soft clay. The wave passed and now there was more of a shape: the sculpture was definitely that of a man. Somehow, via a greater power or some collective mind of their own, the flies were metamorphosing this clay into a human figure. Each of their actions and movements, each motion of their miniscule feet, was purposefully ordered, planned out. Each step was fraught with symbolism.
Another wave passed.
And it was my grandpa.
Down to the drooping jowls, the backwardly combed wisps of hair, and the slightly askew gimp leg.
He was stretched out on the floor, his hands grasping for something that wasn't there, his eyes rolled upward into his skull. There was a look of intense, searing pain on his face.
I knew what it meant. "No!" I screamed, running out of the bathhouse and across the clearing. I did not look to see if Jan was following me or not. At that moment, I didn't care.
Behind me, the buzzing lowered into a soft whisper. As though the flies were quietly laughing.
I flew through the tall grasses and ran past the barn. The sky now was almost clear, and the day was beginning to heat up. Steam rose from the plants as I ran past them or hopped over them. I was too late, and I knew I was too late, but I kept running anyway, ignoring the flashes of pain ripping through my chest, ignoring the ragged rebellion of my tired lungs.
I bounded up the porch steps to the kitchen and flung open the screen door.
He was lying on the floor next to his chair, dead, his body in the same position as that of the sculpture.
I sat down next to him on the floor, taking his hand in mine. His face was not the same as that of the sculpture. It did not look terrified or in pain. But neither did it look pleased. Death had not been a hideous shock or a welcome relief. He was neither miserable nor content. He was only dead. His face was yellowish, drained of color, and he looked very slight and very small, almost like a child.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry, but I could not. I tried looking at his face, his face that I had loved, and thinking of our last conversation together. I tried thinking of the times we'd gone fishing. I tried remembering the presents he'd bought me as a youth. But it was no good. I could not make the tears come no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I wanted them to flow.
I just sat there staring at his lifeless body.
Jan burst through the door, her face red and sweating, out of breath. She looked at my grandpa's body on the floor and her face went from red to white. A look of fear, of horror, crossed her features. "My G-God ..." she stammered, her hands starting to twitch. "Oh my God ..."
I felt calm for some reason, perfectly in control, and I stood up and helped her into a chair. I got her a glass of water, which she drank with shaking hands. "Sit here," I said. "Don't move. I'll be right back."
I started to walk into the living room, then stopped as the scrap of paper caught my eye. I bent down next to my grandpa and picked it up. I thought for a minute, then crumpled up the paper without even glancing at the poem he'd written.
I went to call an ambulance.
Credits
"The Sanctuary" (originally published in Cemetery Dance,
June 1989) "The Woods Be Dark" (originally published in Touch Wood:
Narrow Houses, Vol II, 1994) "The Phonebook Man" (originally published in Eldritch
Tales #27, 1992)
"Estoppel" (originally published in 2 AM, Spring 1988) "The Washingtonians" (originally published in Cemetery
Dance, Fall 1992) "Life With Father" (originally published in Going Postal,
1998)
"Bob" (unpublished)
"Bumblebee" (originally published in Cold Blood, 1991) "Lethe Dreams" (originally published in Night Cry, Spring
1987) "Paperwork" (originally published in The Horror Show,
Winter 1988) "The Idol" (originally published in Twisted, Summer/Fall
1991) "Skin" (originally published in The Horror Show, Winter
1988)
"The Man in the Passenger Seat" (originally published in
Borderlands 3, 1992) "Comes the Bad Time" (originally published in The Horror
Show, Winter 1987) "Against the Pale Sand" (originally published in Grue #10,
1989) "The Pond" (originally published in Blue Moteclass="underline" Narrow
Houses, Vol. 3, 1994) "Roommates" (originally published in The Silver Web #9,
1993)
"Llama" (originally published in Hottest Blood, 1993) "Full Moon on Death Row" (unpublished) "The Show" (originally published in The Horror Show, Fall
1987) "The Mailman" (originally published in The Horror Show,
Summer 1988) "Monteith" (originally published in Expressions of Dread,
1993) "Pillow Talk" (originally published in Eldritch Tales #25,
1991)
"Maya's Mother" (unpublished) "Colony" (unpublished) "Confessions of a Corporate Man" (originally published in
The Fractal, Spring/Summer 1996) "Blood" (originally published in Cemetery Dance, Spring
1990)
"And I Am Here, Fighting with Ghosts" (originally published in Eldritch Tales #18, 1988) "The Baby" (originally published in Spwao Showcase 7:
Selected Works, 1989) "Coming Home Again" (originally published in New Blood
#3, 1987)
"The Potato" (originally published in Borderlands II, 1991) "The Murmurous Haunt of Flies" (originally published in
Murmurous Haunts: The Selected Works of Bentley
Little, 1997)