Borderlands 5 Read online

  You urge the little girl out from behind your legs and into the baleful gaze of Mom. “It’s only for a couple hours, all right? I’ll walk her home later and …” and you didn’t even know the rest yourself. Mom wasn’t the only one you were bullshitting here.

  “Marisa?” Mom glowers at the girl. “Tell me the truth. Did your mother really ask this tramp to babysit you?”

  The little head nods.

  “And this is all right with you, as well?”

  “Uh-huh. I like her. I want to be like her.”

  Mom’s eyes roll up in her head, “Oh, Christ forbid.”

  “Mother …”

  “Don’t ‘Mother’ me, young lady. You are the most irresponsible, untrustworthy little tramp I know, and you expect me to believe that someone’s mother is willing to let you care for her child? You?”

  “Thanks, Mom. You’re confidence in me is positively inspiring.” A shake of her head, a flip of her hand. “Doesn’t matter,” she says. She ties a scarf over her fiery pile of hair, picks up her purse. “Please don’t trash my house, stay out of things that don’t belong to you; best, really, not to move a muscle till I get back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Papers, young lady. Papers to sign, property to handle, et cetera, et cetera. That man is shrewd, but so are we.” And then she is gone with a slam of the door.

  “We” would, of course, be Mom and her lawyer. No question, as well, who “that man” is.

  “Your mother doesn’t like you very much, does she?” asks Marisa.

  Dry swallow, it hurts your throat. “Ah, she’s a pussycat. It’s not what she does that’s so bad, it’s what…”

  Quizzical stare from the girl. You answer it with a question: “What difference does it make?”

  A wild man with no hair and a guitar the color of mud wags his glistening head from side to side and whines into a microphone. This makes Marisa giggle.

  You ask: “Do you have MTV at your home?”

  You watch the back of her head move side to side. “Do you have television at all?”

  One thin shoulder lifts in a shrug.

  “What does that mean? You don’t know, or you don’t remember?”

  “It means…it doesn’t matter.” She turns around, her eyes now on yours. “It means…what difference does it make?”

  “I…” It’s your turn to shrug. “I just want to know who you are. I want to help you, y’know?”

  Now her head nods, a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. “I want to help you help me. Where’s your bathroom?”

  This is too fucking weird, you tell yourself. Much too fucking weird. This was not how your day was supposed to go—you’re not exactly sure how it was supposed to go, but it wasn’t supposed to go like this. How are you going to get this girl, this plastic child, back to where she belongs … wherever the fuck that is?

  Videos and commercials (hard to tell the difference between the two) drone on, proving themselves to be no help to you at all.

  What the hell is going on in there? Another video. Another commercial. What if—

  Was that a moan? A groan? Was that a gasp? You’re up and in a flash you’re at the bathroom door. “Marisa? You all right?”

  Another gasp, and something like a cough.

  “Marisa?”

  Another cough, but this one becomes a word, “I …” followed by another gasp, “… am growing … up.”

  You turn the doorknob, relieved to find no resistance, and push. Your relief instantly evaporates.

  Marisa’s clothes are piled on the rug at the center of the floor. Black shoes, while socks, frilly blue dress, light blue panties. The cabinet beneath the sink is open, allowing a clear view of a blow dryer, a curling iron, a bag of Mom’s old hair curlers, and an open box of Tampax tampons.

  The girl sits on the toilet, wearing only the black band around her arm. Her small legs are spread. Tears run down her face. She is attempting to insert a tampon into herself.

  “See?” she says, “Aren’t I growing up fast?”

  A modicum of normalcy has been reestablished. The girl is dressed and seated on the living room floor. You sit before her. “Tell me where you live, Marisa, because you are going home right now.”

  “Well …”

  “That’s deep. Now tell me where you live.”

  “You are the only one.”

  “Whatever. What’s your address?”

  “There’s nobody else.”

  “I don’t care. Tell me where you live or I’ll take you to the cops and let them deal with you.”

  Marisa’s mouth hangs open, her dark eyes wide. Then, strangely, she grins her plastic grin. “I live here.”

  “What do you mean by that? What do you mean ‘here’?” She rests a thin, pale finger on your chest. “Here.”

  “Look.” You’re up and pacing. “I don’t need this shit, okay?”

  “Okay.” Her finger follows you.

  “I don’t need any of this weird shit, all right?”

  “All right.”

  “What I need is to be alone, understand?”

  “Understand.”

  “Stop that! Stop pointing that fucking finger at me! Stop talking like that! Just stop everything!”

  She says, “I’m sorry,” and she is so sweet, and so terrible, and so cute, and so small, and so …

  And so you hit her.

  Your hand throbs. It feels as if you’ve just backhanded a wall.

  Marisa glares at you, left cheek aglow, but does not cry. You’d hit her hard enough to knock her sprawling on her weird little ass, yet she stands. Not crying.

  “Are you okay?” you ask in a whisper. No movement.

  “Marisa, are you okay?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  Now you are ready to cry. “It makes a difference…I didn’t mean to do that, it just…just…”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No. It isn’t.”

  As if in an extremely delayed reaction, the girl is suddenly on the floor, her body thrashing, her head and heels thumping the living room carpet. Her mouth is open, making ca! ca! sounds.

  You drop to her side, not knowing what to do, where to do it. “Stop, Marisa, Jesus, stop! Please, calm down!” On and on she goes, where she’ll stop, nobody knows. Then you think: 911. They’ll know what to do. In the kitchen, white plastic receiver in hand, you punch numbers, realizing even as you do it, you’re punching 8-1-1. “Shit!” Hit the cutoff, dial again. This time you get it right.

  Click in the phone ear, suddenly nothing in the other.

  Ring in the phone ear, still nothing in the other. Did she stop? Is she all right?

  A tinnified voice says, “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?” No thumping from the living room, no noise at all. Was this a joke?

  Payback?

  “What is your emergency, please?”

  “Umm…um, I’m sorry. This number was dialed on accident. Really, I’m sorry.”

  Receiver back in its cradle, all is silent. “Marisa?”

  You move slowly into the living room to find no one at all on the floor. No one on the furniture. The room, as you once heard in a funny movie, was full of empty people.

  “Hey, Marisa? You still here?”

  A noise, muffled. In the corner, behind the end table. A small pile of home decorating magazines. Move them aside. A heater vent. Another noise: a thump.

  She’s downstairs. In your room.

  How the fuck did she get by you? Doesn’t matter. You’re back through the kitchen and down the back stairs in a matter of seconds. At your bedroom door. Considering your earlier surprise, you think twice before opening this door.

  Are there such things as seven-year-old escaped mental patients? Is Channel Six News running a Special Report right this second warning the public: “The local center for children with diseased minds reported an escape just hours ago. Be on the lookout for Marisa “Mutant Doll” Meadows. She is considered
to have arms, and…”

  Fuck it. She’s just a kid.

  Turn the doorknob, push the door open.

  Before you became your mother’s worst nightmare, some years ago, you were her dream-girl. Doing all the things Mom never had the talent, patience, or time for: dancing, gymnastics, tennis, drama. Fifth Grade: a school play (Mother Goose is on the Loose, you were Little Polly Flinders), receiving a big round of applause at the curtain. Sixth Grade: spelling bee champion.

  Seventh Grade, it was softball. You had your own special bat, shiny aluminum. You never threw it away.

  Now Marisa has it.

  And she appears to be masturbating with it.

  The expression on her face is not one of pain or pleasure. Not surprise or shock. Her face looks dead. Her thin body bucks much the same as it did upstairs, only now her arms aren’t flying, they are rigid, her hands tightly gripping the bat at the taper, pulling the knobbed end into herself, her legs apart and shuddering.

  Again, the only thing she wears is the black band. You open your mouth.

  Nothing comes out.

  When Marisa, thrashing, seems to grow larger in your vision, you realize it is because you are moving toward her, kneeling. You grab hold of the bat, feel its thrumming (God, her muscles must be spring steel), and then the notion of an approaching freight train occurs to you, your hand on the rail, its bright cyclopean headlight growing, swelling …

  (…thrumming, growing, twitching…spurting, oh, your hand, the mess…

  …a sweet doll, that’s daddy’s sweet doll…

  …can I stop now, Daddy? Can I stop? …is that?…)

  “ENOUGH!” you scream, yank the bat from the girls, the girl who is screaming, too, loud and high and without words, so you provide them, “MY DADDY! MY DADDY! MY DADDY!” hands sliding down the bat, “WHY, DADDY, WHY?!”, still some friction tape there, after all these years, all these years, “DADDY DID IT! DADDY DID IT!” and now you’re swinging the bat, high arc, scraping the ceiling, “WHY? WHY? WHY?” then low, plunging into the sweet doll’s face. The face folds. You swing again. There is blood.

  Again.

  Pain: dull in your arms, sharp in your mouth. You bit your tongue, it seems. There’s blood in your mouth. You open your eyes and see blood on your pillow. On your hands, your arms.

  This is real.

  Little Marisa Meadows, on the floor, and didn’t you think her a mutant before? a mutant doll? Yes, well she’s mutated now, all right, mutated into hamburger, though some parts are still recognizable. A foot. A finger. A pair of lips with glistening dark hair stuck to them.

  The lips move.

  You lean in, listening.

  “B-br…break it,” the pulpy thing says, “Break it…now…”

  Break what? What haven’t you already broken? And why would she—

  Then you understand. The black band. Glossy and still intact, around a soft mound of flesh that was once an arm.

  “Break it…can die…” This can’t be real.

  Please, God, if You’re there, may I wake up again and find Mom standing over me again, hands on her hips, pissed off and ready to whale, and we can start this day over again, okay? okay? okay?

  With thumb and forefinger, you grasp the narrow band. You pull. A high whine rises from the bloody mess of Marisa, material stretches, tissue stretches, pain s t r e t c h e s snap!

  Pain: none. Nil.

  You feel nothing at all as you awaken yet again, rise toward the land of the living, and the dead, for the third time today. Eyes find the mess. Still there. Marisa. Still dead.

  This is still real.

  Go away little girl, go and play with someone else, won’t you please? Over onto your back, you see tiny drops of drying blood on the ceiling, and you begin to feel now, pain, though not as bad as before, and pressure…

  …light pressure on your right bicep, and you know what it is without looking. The band. Yours now, all yours. Good for you.

  The sound of a motor approaching, idling. Off. A door slams, and, after a moment, a door opens. Mom’s home. Good for her.

  You slide two fingers under the band. Mom calls out to you.

  You make a decision.

  The Thing Too Hideous to Describe

  DAVID J. SCHOW

  Every once in a while we’ll both decide we like a story enough to include in this series; but discover we like it for totally different reasons. Dave Schow’s story is a great example of this—while one of us found it to be a subtle, inverted parody of the dear, old Fifties monster movies, the other loved its ability to pin down and lay bare the best and worst aspects of our humanity.

  … slapped a pseudopod across the SNOOZE button on Its alarm clock. It liked to be half-awake when midnight actually clicked over, so Its alarm was habitually set to 11:59 p.m. The blue glow of the numerals pleased It, reminded It of some of the biogenous hues It could produce in Its tentacled extremities when satisfied or amused, so It had appropriated the device during some pre-dawn wander or other, from one of the townies who had been imbued in sufficient fear to abandon her bedroom in the middle of the night.

  Its carapace was running red—glowing softly, from worry, taken to bed and slept on. It was not as young as It used to be (what on Earth was?); slithering to the sink was becoming a chore. It tried not to make the grunts and huffs the elderly use to punctuate every movement. It yawned wide instead, freeing a few flying insects who had invested sleeptime (Its own, not theirs) in the determined consumption of tartar flecks from Its back molars. The little monsters never drowned, they never suffocated, they were a nuisance, they were pestilent, riddled with germs, yet perfectly suited to their scavenging purpose.

  Salve, for the burns. The Thing applied an herbal poultice to the gelid patches of still-healing flesh, repellantly smooth and tender to the touch, like a bubo swollen with dead antibodies. Fire had purged detail from Its cratered brown exodermis, the way a child might use an eraser to obliterate portions of a photograph of the Moon’s natural topography. It had lost a sucker from the tip of one of Its retractile protrusions. The wounds would scab thickly, then re-armor. They always did. Last night’s close call had been nothing new.

  Outside, the tarn beckoned. The Thing always felt better after a wake-up rinse and a bit of a roil in the sludge. It furled its feelers for the downhill roll, eyestalks whipping around and causing a rollercoaster sort of dizziness. It flattened Itself to a glistening membrane on the surface of the brackish water, soaking up some lunar rays, and letting the tidal influences inspire provide inspiration. When It rolled out, nearly all the water sluiced free. Its skin was not absorbent.

  It was time to go find some teenagers.

  Maysville was one of those antique, rural Kentucky bergs that rolled up the sidewalks promptly at dusk, and whose church steeple still constituted its highest structural elevation. The bell tower therein had been tolling the hour, and half hour, for more than fifty years without breakdown or incident. The church itself—alabaster, roofed in green shingles—glowered over the town square, where rustic benches and litter baskets were emplaced with the precision of chess pieces. The manicured, triangular greensward it faced was a sort of local picnic spot for those unimaginative enough to venture into the woods. It was near the business district at the intersection of Main and Center Streets, where local merchants closed shop promptly at five in the afternoon.

  At quitting time, the locals did familial rituals, talking ceaselessly about food or the weather, sitting on porches in rockers or swinging loveseats on creaking chains. Then they started drinking—most alarmingly, at a watering hole whose neon sign proclaimed it as BAR. If you telephoned the place, the proprietor, a burly ex-boxer with a buzzing, dysfunctional voice and only the vaguest grasp of the world beyond his batwing doors, would answer “Tommy’s.” The Thing had never called Tommy’s; the Thing had no use for telephones, although It recognized that when one human or another grabbed one, it usually meant trouble. Generally, the residents of Maysville kept
to their homes (the better to service the exponential care and feeding of town gossip) and, at night, banded into drunken groups to hunt down the Thing once and for all. Maysville needed a monster, apparently, to rationalize its hidebound prejudices, its oddball religion, its social dynamic, and to unify the townsfolk against some common enemy… mostly so they did not tear each other apart.

  The Thing Too Hideous to Describe did not know of any monsters in the vicinity; that was one of the reasons It had chosen the area for Its semi-retirement. No werewolves or incubi, no demonic apparitions or defrocked Indian burial tracts. No real estate hauntings, no unspeakable, lowering molochs, and practically no children possessed by devils, although sometimes the Thing was not so sure. The kids here had inherited their progenitors’ sense of superstitious paranoia and hidebound, inbred fear, and frequently they acted monstrously, but the Thing was capable of appreciating the difference. No real monsters …

  … unless you counted the townsfolk, who got incredibly intolerant when they got liquored up at Tommy’s. The formula was always the same: they complained, and drank, and groused, and drank, and started stamping their feet, while drinking some more, and before you could say boo, you had a gang of violent alcoholics storming up your nether port—drunk, deluded, waving torches and pointy farm implements, screaming with bloodlust in a democracy of madness and mob unreason.

  There were already plenty of frightening things in the world, thought the Thing. Circus clowns, for example. Cartoonists and writers—creatures who invented the kind of lurid pulp that could inflame the basest frenzies of unthinking, potentially dangerous crowds. Such artisans of corruption sat in their high places, and distorted form, and made a mockery of all life, and did not care that their exploitative claptrap sank fear into the souls of the ignorant. The Thing had once seen a photograph of one of their minor gods. The portrait depicted some gloomy Gus, all hangdog and horrific and mostly hairless, his eyes broadcasting doom and cosmic apocalypse, hinting at a near-blasphemous tunnel vision that hated all it saw, and saw only that which could kindle the otherworldly passions resident in the fetid lobes of the man’s dark and hateful brain.