First published in Flicker Magazine, Fall 1999                                                WARNING - This story contains graphic violence and sexual situations

By Eric B. Anderson

It’s been almost as many weeks as I have fingers since Daddy got gone.  He’ll come back.  Come crawling back, Mama said.  Like a fat rat to cheese. 

Mama hated the fat rats.  Fat rats.  She’d spit when she said it, like she’d got one on her tongue.  Fat goddamn rats.  Not long after Daddy got gone, Mama kept seein’ the fat rats everywhere.  Most of ‘em live in town, down at the bank or over at the electric company.  There was even some at our house a couple weeks ago, come lookin’ for Daddy.  Fat FUCKIN’ RATS.  

“Your Daddy’ll come crawling back,” Mama said.  “He’ll come back.”  She started telling everyone we saw, all the time, but nobody seemed to be surprised or bothered by it much.  Mostly, they’d just keep on walking.  She’d say it over and over and over again, like saying it’d make it so.  She’d get louder and louder and sound real scary, and I’d know not to make a peep. 

Fat rats. 

I did peep once...one time when Mama was having a “spell.”  That’s what she calls them.  She was rocking in her chair, calling Daddy a fat rat, saying he’d be coming home soon, real soon and I felt a sneeze coming, up high in my nose.  I closed my eyes hard and tried to make it go away.  I shook my head right and left, and before I could go right again, Mama’d hit me square across the nose with the good book.  It did the trick, knocked the sneeze right out, but it hurt real bad.  I opened my eyes and there was Mama, God’s fire in her eyes and the bible in her shaking hand.  She was yelling, “He WILL be back.”  I said no Mama, I know Mama, but I saw the bible swinging towards me and the room sparked and went to black, like the t.v. set shutting off. 

When I woke up, my head was on Mama’s lap and she was rockin’ back and forth on the couch.  She was crying’ and a tear dripped off her chin and splatted across my cheek.   

“Please don’t hate me, Tommy boy.” 

“I don’t,” I said, but she didn’t seem like she heard me.  She kept on crying, kept saying, no-no-no-no-no, over and over.  Finally, she stopped rocking and stared down at me for a long, long time.  She smiled, but her muscles got tight and her lap got real stiff. 

“Your Daddy was an evil man, Tommy, and he tried so hard to make me evil too.  But I am not your Daddy.”  She shook her head and made a noise like a sigh, only deeper.  “I just get . . . frustrated.  That’s all.” 

She leaned down ‘til her face was close enough that I could feel her breath.  “Frustration is a weakness that only runs skin deep, Tommy boy.  It’ll pass.”  She leaned back and looked up at the ceiling.  “My heart is filled with the Lord.” 

Then her face got all twisted up and she looked me right in my eyes again.  “Evil like your Daddy’s . . . it’s in the bones.  It turns them midnight black and you can’t get it out, no matter how you try.”  She laid back on the couch, slumped into it.  “It’ll make you crazy.  You think on that.” 

###

It was Christmas day, three days after my birthday, the day that Daddy got gone.  Mama used to hold up her pointing finger next to her thumb and tell people that my Tommy was this close to being with the Christ child, but he was in too big a hurry.  That’s why God didn’t give him all his smarts. 

It was my sixteenth birthday, my driver’s license birthday, but Mama said I couldn’t get one on account of my disability.  I didn’t care much ‘bout that, though, ‘cause it was Christmas. 

Mama and Daddy had just strung up the lights on the house.  We got bunches and bunches of lights, so many that you could see the front door to Daddy’s shed from our back porch, even at night, and that’s a long stretch to look.  The inside of the house was brighter still, with blinking white dots on the Christmas tree and in all the doorways.  Mama sprayed the walls and floor with the snow that comes in a can that she got from the fat rats at the drugstore in town. 

We just finished the decorating (Daddy said our house looked just like the North Pole) when Mama brought out her special eggnog.  It didn’t taste much like eggs, more like melted ice cream with cinnamon sprinkled in, and I drank it up until my stomach was all tingly and warm.  It made my head feel like it had balloons floating inside it and I got all giggly.  Mama and Daddy were laughing too, and we drank Mama’s eggnog and sang Christmas Carols in front of the fireplace. 

It wasn’t long before Daddy started yawning and he laid himself down on the couch.  A minute later he was snoring.  Mama shook him once, but she said he was out.  He looked so peaceful that watching him started to make me feel droopy. 

I closed my eyes for just a second before I heard Mama say, “Come on, Tommy, it’s time to clean my little baby Jesus.” Mama smiled and took my hand, leading me down the hallway to the bathroom.  It was time for the Christmas baptism.

Mama led me onto the cold tile, crossed herself and whispered, we must cleanse the flesh for our souls to    triumph.  She usually didn’t say we, but I didn’t think much of it.  I was worried, and I asked her What about Daddy’s soul?, but she just smiled. 

The faucet squeaked as she turned on the water and started to pour the bubble bath. When the bubbles grew big and thick on top, Mama tested the water with her fingers.  Just right, she said, and she smiled again. It was different than her normal smile; it was a jumpy smile, crooked, and the corners of her mouth twitched up and down.  She looked at me, then away, then at me again. “Close the door, Tommy,” she said softly and I did, pushing it shut with my back.  The bathroom was getting hot from the steam coming from the tub, but both of us were shaking all over.

Mama smiled again, then her face disappeared behind the big Christmas sweater, red like her hair, that made crackly noises as she pulled it over her head.  Some of her hair stood straight up after the sweater was gone, but the rest fell over her shoulders and down around her naked “bosoms.”  That’s what Mama called them.

I looked away and took a step backward, but I could still see her out of the side of my eye.  The doorknob rattled as my hand bumped against it, and I jumped a little. 

Mama looked at the floor and pulled her pants down.  She stepped out of her blue jeans.  Next, her panties went down, and I could see the hair that covered the place where babies come from, as red as the rest of it.  

The air got real hard for me to breathe and I closed my eyes.  I heard water splash as Mama stepped into the tub.  I opened my eyes and saw she was still smiling. 

“Come here, baby,” she whispered.  “Let Mama get her hands on you.”  I shook my head, but took a step toward her.  “That’s it, come to your Mama.  I took another step.” 

Mama’s hands were always warm, but when she touched me then, they felt like fire.  I tried to pull away, but it only made Mama tug harder.  I felt my eyes starting to water, but I didn’t want to cry, didn’t want to disrespect the baby Jesus and the sacred baptism. 

“Shh, baby.  Hush . . . it’s allright . . .”

Mama untucked my t-shirt and pulled it up over my head.  The air was cold and felt even colder ‘cause of Mama’s hot hands.  She put her hand on my shoulder, then let it fall down over my chest and across my belly to the top of my jeans.  Then she unbuttoned my pants and opened up the zipper.  She slid them down and there I was, naked and cold.  I was shaking again and I heard Mama say, come on, baby, get in where it’s warm.

I reached down and broke through the bubbles with my pointing finger.  The water was warm.

I put my feet in and started to slide down before Mama took me by the arms and pulled me into the water, pulling me up close.  I tried to look at her, but she held my head, held me to her, pulling my cheek down against her bosoms.  I could hear her heart thumping and I felt Mama’s fingers rubbing against my leg.  I felt her breath, hotter than her hands.  “Come here, baby,” she whispered.  “Then she was   turning me.  Come here.” 

Mama held me tighter to her and I started to burn up.  I couldn’t breathe.  I tried to pull back but she just wouldn’t let go.  Her fingernails bit me in the back.

Then something pushed my face into Mama’s chest, hard, and my nose bent sideways.  I looked up as Daddy grabbed me by my hair and tossed me out on the bathroom floor.  I heard my head crack against the tile and the room went white twice before I could see again.  Mama was standing up in the tub, leaned against the wall, and she and Daddy were both screaming words that I couldn’t make out.  Daddy swayed from side to side like he might fall down, stood straight up for a second, and punched Mama in her belly.  Her legs buckled and she fell down hard.  Her face made an awful crunching-snapping noise as her chin hit the edge of the tub, and there was blood coming out of her mouth.  Daddy’s eyes got real big then, and he stumbled backward, kicking into me before he turned around and lurched out the door, using the walls to keep him up.

Mama didn’t make a sound for a long time.  Blood was making bubbles around the sides of her mouth, but she had the fire in her eyes.  The water in the tub slushed and slid around and some of it slapped onto the floor and got Mama’s sweater wet.  Finally, Mama stood up, and that seemed to take a lot of work.  Slowly, she pulled on her wet sweater. She picked up her panties and walked out of the bathroom, closing the door. 

I was too scared to move, so I lay still on the floor, listening to the rumble of thunder outside.  I must have drifted off, ‘cause there was no thunder and sunlight was coming in the window when I opened my eyes again.  I called out for Mama, but no one was in the house. 

Mama came home later in the day.  Daddy never did, even though Mama kept saying he would.

###

That’s when the fat rats started coming.  Mama waited tables in town, but she had wires in her mouth until a couple of weeks ago, so she couldn’t talk real good and she got moody.  She said that’s why the fat rats at work wouldn’t let her work there any more. 

Daddy didn’t leave us with much money and Mama couldn’t afford to pay all of the bills, so the fat rats at the electric company turned out the lights.  They turned off the refrigerator too, and after a while, our food started to smell.  I ate something green even though Mama told me to stay out, but I was just so hungry. 

I got real sick then.  I got vomit all over Mama’s rug and she couldn’t get it out.  She threw out the rest of the food the next day, and then we didn’t have enough money to get more.  I was getting real hungry and even more sad.  I was sure we were going to starve.  I sat at the table for what seemed like at least two days, crying and whooping, feeling the rumble in my stomach.  I slept off and on, but usually only when Momma was asleep or wasn’t around.  I figured that if she saw how sad and skinny I was getting and that I wasn’t getting any rest, she’d find a way to get us some food. 

All I guess I really did was make her mad.  After the second day, I was still whooping and hollering and holding onto my stomach when Momma ran into the kitchen, opened up a cupboard and tossed a plate right at my head.  I seen it coming, so I ducked down and it smashed into the wall behind me, smashed into a bazillion tiny pieces.  Before I could get off the chair, Momma had me by the ear and pulled me onto the floor.  “Eat THAT, you SHIT,” she said, pointing at the broken dish on the floor.  She let go of my ear then and went to the front door.  She slammed the door behind her and I sat on the floor, keeping real quiet, for a long, long time.  My stomach was hurting bad, but somehow I started to drift off.  That’s when the storm set in.

###

I woke up when the lightning started.  I heard a little boom --- a thunder crash from a long ways off.  Then there was another one, a little closer, and the room got real bright, then dark, then bright again, before finally settling on just being dark.  I picked myself up off the ground and went to the window.  Water was slapping against it like someone was throwing bucketfuls at the house.  The trees were moving back and forth so hard that branches were coming off three or four at a time.  I could barely make out Daddy’s shed.

I pressed my face hard up against the window and opened my eyes wide to get a better look.  There was something moving out there, but it was too dark to make out what it was.  There was another lightning flash, so bright that the whole yard lit up.  That’s when I seen the rats. 

Fat rats are coming. The sound of my voice scared me and I could feel my heart beating hard in my chest, jumping up at my throat. 

Rats.  Some as big as raccoons, others the size of a church mouse, but they were all movin’ round Daddy’s shed.  They were scattered all over the yard, crawling out of the woods, out from behind rocks; some of them looked like they came out of nowhere, they just appeared.  Around Daddy’s shed, the little rats climbed over and around each other, hurrying in through little cracks between the boards, while the fat rats scratched holes in the ground underneath the boards, working hard to pull their big bellies through.

And then there was Mama.  She came from around the back side of the shed, soaked to the skin, swearin’ and swingin’ Daddy’s shovel, knocking fat rats this way and that.  Some of ‘em lay down, but most of ‘em just got back up and hurried off into the yard.  Then she caught a big one right smack in the snout with the tip of the shovel and it fell backward and didn’t get up.  Lightning flashed just as Mama brought the shovel down again and just about cut the fat rat in two.  I felt queasy and stepped back away from the window.

A couple of minutes later, in came Mama, soaking wet, but looking real happy.  “Got ‘em, Tommy boy.  Got them God damned fat rats.  Got ‘em good.”  She held out her right fist and smiled.  She had three of them, big as all bejeezus, flopping against each other as they tried to get free.  Well, actually, only two of them were movin’, the last one was the one I saw Mama get, and it didn’t look much like it would ever move again.

I started feeling queasy again, and I knew Mama would be mad if I got vomit on the kitchen again, so I hurried on in to the toilet, just in case.  I guess I didn’t have to get sick, but I heard Mama saying, “Tommy . . . get back in here,” then cursing and what sounded like her stomping on something wet.

I was afraid she was going to be mad at me, so I went into my room and got down behind the bed so she wouldn’t find me and maybe would be happy again before she made me come back into the kitchen.  I could hear her banging around in the kitchen, clanging on the pots and pans, but she never called for me again, so I just stayed where I was and waited.

After what felt like a long time, Mama came and got me.  “What’re you doing down there, Tommy?  Mama’s almost got dinner ready.”  I sat real still, trying to figure out if I was in trouble.  Then she smiled.  “Come on . . .” Her smile got bigger and she took my hand and pulled me to my feet.  “Come on, Tommy boy.  It’s dinner time.”

When I got to the kitchen, I felt queasy all over again.  In the middle of the dinner table, the fat rats were floating in a pot of hot water, naked and gray and still as could be.  There were two plates set on the table and Mama sat down at one and it looked like she wanted me to sit at the other one, but I just couldn’t. 

“Come on, Tommy.  It’s dinner time.”

I just stood there, looking at the pot.  Two of the rats looked just like they were sleeping, except their hair was all gone and they were floating in water.  The third one’s head must’ve finally come loose from the cooking, and it floated around separate from the rest of it. 

Something was trying to come up from my belly, and I gulped a couple of times to keep it down, but I couldn’t. 

I did it again. 

I vomited right there in the kitchen, right there on Mama’s floor, right in front of Mama.  I could see from the look on her face that I was really in for it this time, but I couldn’t stop.  I tried to head toward the toilet, but I only made it to the hall before my stomach gurgled again and pushed more nasty stuff into my mouth.  I held it in for a minute, but it made me gag and I had to open my mouth to get a breath of air and it spilled onto the carpet.

Mama was cursing behind me.  “Just like your father, you little SHIT.  You ungrateful . . . little . . . SHIT!”  With each word came a swat to my backside.  Then she grabbed me by my hair, just like Daddy’d done before he went away, and dragged me back into the kitchen, through my mess, soaking it into my clothes.  “You eat, you fuck . . . you bastard!  You eat what your Mama gives you!”

Mama tried to get me back into my chair, but by then I was pulling hard to try to get away.  I guess she must’ve just let go, ‘cause all of a sudden I was loose and    scrambling toward the back door.  I grabbed for the knob, yanked the door open, and tumbled out into the grass.

Mama was at the door right behind me, but she didn’t come through.  She stood there, glaring at me, staring down at her Tommy boy with the fire in her eyes.  “Go on then, shit.  Go on out with your Daddy, you wicked, filthy pig.  You’ll come back.  Like a fat rat to cheese.”  She smiled then and shut the kitchen door.

###

I didn’t really have anywhere to go then.  I wasn’t thinking much past getting outside and now I didn’t have anywhere to go, and the rain was coming down hard as ever and it was starting to get cold out.  I moved away from the house, ‘cause I knew I couldn’t get back in there, even if I thought I wanted to, which I didn’t.

Fat rats.

I started toward the shed, Daddy’s shed.  It wouldn’t be real warm, but maybe there would be some of Daddy’s old work clothes and it wouldn’t be raining in there. 

Fat fucking RATS.

It wasn’t ‘til I got close that I remembered about the rats.  Even after Mama’s shovel swinging, they were       everywhere, scurrying around the base of the shed, flowing in and out through burrowed tunnels and holes chewed through the wood.  There must’ve been at least a jillion of them.  One of them skittered across my foot and I kicked it off and stumbled backward into the tall grass.  My heart started to boom in my chest but I was getting wetter by the second and had to do something, before I caught my death of cold, like Mama always said I would.

I got my courage up and grabbed hold of the door handle and pulled, and it snapped right off in my hand, bringing a piece of the door with it, but the rest of it didn’t move at all.  There was a hole now where the handle was, but I couldn’t see much inside cause it was dark. 

But I could smell something.  It smelled worse than anything, worse than when I used to go in my pants and hide ‘em from Mama so she wouldn’t get mad, and that got pretty bad.

Lightning flashed again, and the thunder that came after caused the rats to move faster, most of them pushing inside the shed.  I moved faster, too.  I put my hand into the hold where the handle was and pulled on the wood.     Another chunk snapped off, but not quite enough for me to get myself through.  I stepped back a step and kicked at the door, and this time it seemed like the wood just crumbled into nothing and all that was left was a few pieces straggling from the hinges.  I went back up to the hole in the wall and went inside.

I’d been inside Daddy’s shed a bunch of times.      Usually, it smelled like wood and machines, oil and metal; like the chair Daddy built or the lawnmower when he’d get it started in the spring.  But this time there was something that smelled...wrong.

Lightning came again.

A man was sitting on Daddy’s bench.

I only saw it for a second, but I was sure of what I saw.  My insides let loose, and I peed myself.  I stopped breathing as it trickled down my leg and into my shoes.

I back up a step, and my foot came down on something soft.  I pulled it back and heard claws rushing away.

Rats. 

Fat goddamn rats!

Everything around me was pitch black.  Something grabbed onto my foot and tugged so hard, it almost knocked me down.  I reached down and felt a great big hairy rat fuck!  I felt its teeth sink into my hand and a yelled and fell backwards, kicking at the rat.

Hands.

Grabbing onto my shoulders.

“Get up, Tommy.”  Mama’s voice was right behind me.  Something flitted across the bench.  “Go to your Daddy.” 

A flashlight came on.

It was Daddy.

Sitting there, right where he always was, right where he was supposed to be.

Except Daddy’s head was gone. 

One of his eyes was still there, and part of his nose and mouth, so I knew it was him. 

But the rest of his head was gone.  His back was leaned against the wall, his one eye staring out towards Mama and me.

My heart got stuck in my throat and my eyes started watering.

“I told you he’d be back.”

Half a dozen fat rats were running round Daddy’s feet, biting and chewing at his pants, at his legs.  In places, I could see bone. 

Evil is in the bones.

It was white.

I turned around to look at Mama, and the tears started coming. 

She stood just outside the door,  rain pelting against her head and back, and her face had a look I’d never seen before.  Not happy, not sad...not anything.  She had Daddy’s sawed-off in her hand, pointing at the ground.  I once saw Daddy explode a rat with that shotgun, so the way Mama held it loose in her hand made me nervous.

“I told you, Tommy boy.”

“Mama?”

“Your Daddy was an evil, evil man.”

“No Mama.  Look at the bones, Mama.  You said . . .”

“Tommy.  Oh, Tommy.

She raised the gun.  I took a step backward, saw a wood carving knife on the bench next to Daddy, and picked it up.  Mama giggled.

“Not for you . . .”

The tip of the gun kept going up and I took another step back, right into Daddy.  The bench wobbled, then tipped and Daddy hit the ground hard, flopping onto his side.  Mama closed her eyes.

“Our Father, who art in heaven . . .,” she started to pray. 

I bowed my head in prayer, but she’d stopped.

Mama looked like she was going to kiss the tip of Daddy’s gun, but then she opened her mouth and put it     inside.  She took it in both hands and started to fumble with it.

“MAMA!”

The gun banged and Mama’s head exploded, pieces of red hair and blood flying every which way.  Her eyes went blank and her body shook.  She stood like that for a minute, then fell backward into the grass.

The fat rats went wild, scurrying across Mama’s body, some trying to get into the shed, some out, but all of them trying to get away.  One flitted by, covered in red goo and bone chips, and pushed himself into Daddy’s head, curling up into a ball and shaking.

I looked at my Mama, then Daddy.  My stomach heaved again and I spit chunks onto the floor.  My face got hot, then cold, then my head blinked out altogether.

###

In the bones...in the bones...in the bones...

That’s what Mama said.  Mama said evil’s in the bones, but it’s not. 

It’s not, not, NOT.

I just don’t know. 

I DON’T know . . .

Daddy’s skin practically fell off in my hands.  I barely had to use the knife.  Daddy taught me how to skin rabbits, so it wasn’t too hard.  Tastes like chicken, Daddy’d say. 

Not this. 

No.

The bones are white.  WHITE. 

I don’t know.  I just don’t know!

Mama was harder.  Not much, but harder.  Her bosoms were heavy, not soft now, not really.  But they came off, they all came off.

white.

I don’t...

But I’ll find out.  I will.

hurts.

I’ll find out now.

IT HURTS.

It’s me, I know it is . . .

Evil is in the bones.

I won’t feel it for long. 

Just slice, slice, peel . . .

Like skinning . . . a rat . . .

There more than one way to skin a rat, right Mama?

MAMA!

It’s in the bones, Tommy boy.

. . . slice, slice, peel . . .

. . . bones . . . yes . . .

slice . . .

The End