Third Child

The boy danced barefoot over the graves of forgotten gods. Tears snaked down his smooth cheeks, dripped to his naked chest, as he spun round, staring at the glimmering pinpoints of pale light sprinkling the blackness above.

A few yards away, a girl, his younger sister, lay on the cold earth, her arms and legs bound with tobacco twine. Over the left side of her face, a purplish bruise pulsed against her pasty, pimpled skin, a weird half mask.

Beside her, the third child—wrapped in a cloth stained rusty brown—kicked and squirmed.

"S-Shelby," the girl whispered, struggling against the bonds. "Shelby." The boy stopped his frantic jumping and spinning, cocked his head curiously, and approached his sister. His muscles ached from the task of dragging her to the hill, followed by his own frenzied dancing under the night sky. Despite the cold, he was sweating. He knelt down beside her. Frightened, she tried to scoot away, like a half-squashed inchworm.

"Shhhhh...." Shelby gently traced his finger around the bruise on his sister's face. She winced. "Does it hurt badly?"

Blood trickled from raw gashes around her wrists and ankles, the result of pulling and tugging against the coarse bindings.

"Don't struggle, Ester. You don't need to hurt yourself. You're safe." In his sister's wet eyes Shelby saw his reflection, and, as he watched, the image changed, becoming cruel and ugly. Recognizing the face, Shelby gasped and stumbled away.

A voice seemed to echo over the hills.

"Look at Shelby and his half-wit sister. Don't you two make a sight?"

Shelby clamped his hands over his ears, but it did no good, for the growling voice came not from the hills, but from within, a painful memory raging through his mind like a sudden storm. The metallic taste of blood filled Shelby's mouth as he bit down on his lip to drive the thoughts from his head.

And then it was quiet.

"Won't listen to that no more," Shelby muttered. His eyes darted from his sister to the tiny, bundled form of the third child. "None of us will listen to that no more."

The skull-like moon cast a cold glow over the land. Goose-bumps rose on Shelby's flesh as a bitter gust of air swept past, whipping his tangled hair, moaning like a lonely child. Rolling hills stretched in every direction toward rustling, sweet-smelling pines.

"Daddy's gonna help us."

Wind washed over the hill, and another memory, carried through the air from far away, forced its way into Shelby's mind.

"Just a storm."

The old chair creaks as Mama rocks back and forth, cooing softly to Shelby, who clings to her, his eyes stinging from hours of crying.

Outside, black clouds swirl above the trees. White-hot streaks of lightning tear gashes in the sky. Rain pelts the windows of the farmhouse, causing the thick glass panes to rattle in the frame.

"Just a storm," Mama says again. "Nothing more."

But it isn't the rain or the thunder or the lightning that sends a sickening shiver along Shelby's spine when peers out the window.

Slithering across the clouds, the leering face of his father stares back at him.

Shelby jumped to his feet, watching the hills hopefully ... then settled back to a sitting position and sighed sadly. He had believed, for a moment, the ground had shifted beneath him, as if something were clawing its way to the surface from deep below. But several minutes passed without another hint of activity underground, and he started to wonder if he had felt anything in the first place.

"What are we doing, Ester?" he asked.

His sister did not answer.

The baby, covered in bloodied rags, started to cry.

"Just don't think about the things he does. He ain't your real daddy. That's all that matters."

"Where is he then—my real daddy?"

Mama lifts him from her lap and leads him to the window, where she points in the direction of rolling stone hills, lit by brief bursts of lightning.

"Nothing out there," Shelby says, "but a bunch of old Indian bones. That's what Mr. Haney from the grocery told me."

But Mama only shakes her head and smiles and slouches into the chair again, her eyes glimmering. "You're very special, since you're the first. The first of three children your daddy will bring into this world."

She licks her lip and massages her inner thighs, the coarse dress snagging across the stubbly hair of her legs.

"Three?" Shelby asks.

"You, Ester, and a child yet to come."

"When will it come?"

"Smart boy." She smiles and runs her hand through his greasy hair. "One day, your daddy will call to me, as he has twice before, and I'll steal off to meet him."

"My real daddy?"

"That's right. He's a powerful creature, like an angel, but he's been trapped in the spirit world for a long while."

"Why don't he just come and get us now?"

"Right now he can only come to us on certain nights. One day, though, his children—his three children—will usher him into this world forever. Then he'll—"

The front door of the house slams open. The heavy tread of work boots fills the hall. Mama chews on her lip, shushes Shelby, and sends him to his room.

Shelby didn't know whether to believe what his mother had told him or not. He knew better than to doubt what someone as good as his mother swore to be gospel, but he had trouble believing his real father was some sort of angel or god.

Old Mr. Haney from the grocery had told him there was only one true God, and He was always watching, and to believe in false gods would condemn someone to burn in Hell.

Shelby didn't know whether to believe Mr. Haney or not, either.

So he defined his own beliefs, for better or worse, and stuck to them, although he never breathed a word of what he truly thought to his mother or anyone else.

He figured that his father wasn't a god at all, but a long-dead Indian medicine man. The hills were supposed to be full of Indian graves. The spirit of this Indian medicine man could return to the physical world every now and then, just as Mama described, and one day, when three children of his ancient bloodline were born, he could return from the dead forever.

When he thought about it, though, if a man could return from the grave, shouldn't that man be considered a god?

He shifted, because he felt cold and numb, and felt a sharp pain. He looked down to see a rock jutting up from the hillside. He pried the rock free of the earth, smiled, and nodded.

An arrowhead.

When the hills call, Shelby follows Mama as she sneaks out into the misty, wintry night to meet Daddy. He stays pretty far away, because he doesn't want her to know he's there, and all he can see is a shadow of the thin, twisted man who stands on the hill waiting for her.

When she approaches, the thin man grabs a handful of her dress and tears it away, jerks her to him, and shoves her to the ground.

Her screams echo over the hills.

The bruise under Ester's eye reminded Shelby of how mean he had been to his sister. He hadn't wanted to strike her. He had only wanted her to follow. But she had pulled away from him, laughing at first, as if she thought they were playing some game of catch and, eventually, when she realized Shelby was serious, she had struggled like an animal afraid of being caged.

So Shelby hit her.

"I'm sorry about that, Ester," he said, looking over his shoulder at her. "It's all for the best, you know."

All the anger he had felt when Ester had pulled away had drained from his senses hours ago. Now he only felt guilty and sad and scared.

Could his real father help Ester? he wondered. Could he make her the way she was before....

Tires screech as Ester steps into the road, chasing after a yellow and black butterfly. Shelby, sitting in the grass nearby, tries to leap after her, tries to pull her away from the road, from the approaching car, but he is too late.

Ester slams into the polished steel grille of the car, rolls onto the hood and into the windshield, which shatters into a spider web design.

"Mama!" Shelby screams. "Maaaama!"

Ester thumps face first to the pavement, shearing her front teeth off at the roots, and the still-skidding car crunches over her right arm, grinding it into the deep trenches, twisting it in all the wrong places.

"Mama!" Shelby cries again.

He falls to his knees beside Ester, who gibbers his name, and he can't believe the amount of blood spreading over the pavement, soaking the knees of his pants, and the driver of the car mutters, "I didn't see her," over and over again.

Another car—a station wagon—passes by slowly. A child in the back seat watches with his hands and face pressed up against the window.

Mama is screaming and crying as she runs to the street, scooping Ester into her arms, shaking her head as if trying to wake herself from a nightmare. She wipes bloody hair from the girl's mangled face and rushes back to the house.

"Is she—" the driver starts to ask but is unable to finish the sentence.

"Dead?" Shelby asks, following Mama.

"They're trying to stop your true Daddy," Mama says. "They're trying to stop him from coming back."

Ester heals.

But she is never the same.

Maybe his real father would help Ester. The two things Shelby wanted more than anything in the world were his sister back to normal and his Mama back ... back from the dead.

Hadn't Ester been waiting all that time for her father to return from beneath the burial mounds and make her whole again?

Hadn't she, in some simple way, understood?

Always. Except, Shelby thought, for tonight. Had she not heard the call? Had she sensed something ... wrong?

Not that any of the questions mattered.

The third child of the ancient bloodline had been born only hours earlier, and even though Mama was not with the children, they had answered the call.

Shelby heard a noise—a soft crunching—and excitement filled his heart. As he listened, though, the sound grew louder, more clear, and he recognized it as the tread of boots over the pebble-covered ground.

Scurrying to the side of the hill, he saw a large figure approaching ... from the direction of the farmhouse.

Shelby shut his eyes, shook his head to clear his mind, hoping that when he looked again, the image of the man would be gone. But the tread of work boots continued, and when Shelby opened his eyes, he could almost see the man's cruel features in the moonlight.

"Daddy," he started to say, but bit deep into the soft meat of his tongue for even considering such a blasphemy.

Just like Mama had said, some outside force was trying to stop his true father from returning to the world of the living and, just as Mama had chosen Shelby to bring his father back, those outside forces had found their champion.

That man—that murderer—was not his father.

Mama's stomach is large with the third child when Daddy breaks through the front door dragging a dead man behind.

"Herbert?" Mama calls from upstairs, where she rests. "What are you making all that noise for?"

"Get down here!" Daddy calls, pulling the dead man by the feet toward the stairs. "You listen to me! Get down here!"

"What is it?" Mama asks, coming out of the room, a grimace of horror washing over her features when she sees Daddy's grisly burden. "Dear God!"

"Is this him?" Daddy asks, stomping up the stairs, the dead man's skull cracking against the steps with every step. "Is this the man you been fucking?"

In his hiding place under the stairs, Shelby winces at the sound of such a terrible word.

"Is this him?"

"I—I don't know what you're ... talking about," Mama answers.

"Don't lie to me!"

Daddy slaps Mama. She cries out as his large, meaty palm strikes across her face. He slaps her again.

"Let me go—"

Mama's words trail off into a frightened wail.

She tumbles down the stairs, her bones popping and cracking, her body twisting. When she hits the floor, she is still.

"Shelby!" the man called. "Shelby! What in the name of God are you doing, boy? I've been back to the house. I saw what you did."

"Get out of here!" Shelby yelled. "You don't belong here!"

"Don't you talk back to me." The knees of the man's pants were stained with blood, Shelby's mother's blood. "I ain't in the mood. You've got some explaining to do."

"Just go away," Shelby said, his voice high, shrieking. "I'm not going home with you!"

"I don't give a damn whether you come back or not," the man said as he stomped up the hill. "You can rot out here for all I care, until the sheriff comes to claim you for what you did to your mother. But I'm taking Ester home with me."

"You killed Mama," Shelby spat.

"That ain't the way it looks to me. Ain't the way it will look to the sheriff, either, once I fetch him."

"Shelby?" Ester questioned, looking from the man to the boy, then back again.

"Leave us alone, you bastard!" Shelby cried.

And the man's laughter echoed over the hills, as if all the spirits had joined in, ridiculing Shelby.

"Bastard?" the man said. "Bastard? Mighty strong word coming from a boy who don't even know who his daddy really is."

"Don't you say that! Shut up! I know who he is!"

"You know so much about him? Then tell me about him."

Silence. Shelby struggled to find the words. He glanced at his sister, who still struggled against the ground, to the man, to the hills that rose in all directions like sleeping heads rising from under the blanket of earth and grass and shrubs. Silence.

"Want me to tell you?" the man said. "Your daddy was just some old wanderer who came through this way every now and again. And he told your crazy mama he was some sort of ghost or some such shit so he could get into her panties."

"That ain't true!"

The hills answered—True! True! True! —in a hollow voice.

Unable to stand another word, Shelby screamed and threw himself at the man. He slammed into him. Together, they stumbled to the ground.

"...Ain't him," Mama mutters, bubbles of black blood oozing over her lips. "Can't ... kill an angel."

Daddy has gone, storming out of the house without a second look at his fallen wife, leaving the dead man's body sprawled across the top of the stairs.

"You got to ... save the baby," Mama says, grasping at him. "Save the third baby."

"But you're hurt."

"Your ... daddy will bring me back ... if you save the baby. You know what you have to do."

Shelby rushes to the kitchen, forcing back tears, scrambles through the silverware drawer, and finds it empty. He reaches into the sink, full of unwashed dishes and cold, scum-covered water, and grabs a plastic-handled knife. He hurries back and kneels before his dying Mama and extends the knife to her.

"You do it!" she coughs.

"I can't."

"Do it! Hurry!" She guides his hand over her stomach. "Right here."

Closing his eyes, Shelby presses the knife against her stomach, swallows, and forces the blade down. Mama cries out, spittle oozing from her mouth, and Shelby asks if she wants him to stop, begs her to let him stop, but she grinds her teeth and thrashes her head from side to side as dark blood fountains over Shelby's fingers.

He's afraid. Afraid of what he's doing to his mother. Afraid he might kill the baby. He thinks back to all the calves he helped deliver some from sick and dying cows, but he cannott think of his own mother that way. This is different, so different.

"I can't," he says.

"Get it out!"

A jagged cut opens in Mama's belly, and, dropping the knife to the floor, Shelby inserts his fingers into the opening. With a grimace, a whimper, he pulls apart the flaps of the skin, and Mama stays still, except for a brief shudder—a minor convulsion.

Shelby reaches into her stomach, his fingers sinking into soft tissue and warm blood. He grabs the small, fragile body of his new brother and pulls the infant to him. He knows what must be done. The umbilical cord must be cut. He must make sure the baby can breathe.

Mama's eyes are wide open and lifeless.

"No!" he whispers.

He tries to wake his mother, but finally gives up, resting his head in his bloodied hands and weeping.

"Get off me!" Shelby shouted, drawing on all his strength to kick the larger man away.

A mottled red moved over the false father's face. He scrabbled to his feet. His tobacco-stained, chipped teeth showed from behind a furious snarl. He reached for Shelby, his thick fingers twitching anxiously.

"You're dead, you little shit!" he growled.

Shelby tried to duck to the side, but he wasn't fast enough. He was jerked back, his neck snapping forward, his feet leaving the ground. Strong fingers squeezed into his shoulder.

"Think I'm a fool?" the large man cried, flinging the boy to the ground. He landed only inches from crushing the baby. "Think I'm a damned fool, don't you?"

Wheezing to catch his breath, Shelby spat out a plea without thinking. "No, Daddy. Don't."

The man knelt over Shelby.

Like a spider, Shelby's hand crawled across the ground and grabbed a large, jagged stone. Summoning every once of his strength, Shelby swung the rock at his false father's face, catching him in the temple. He blinked two or three times, then toppled over.

"This is done," Shelby spat, wiping the tears from his grimy face. He lifted the rock over the large man's head, and struck once, twice, three times, ground it against the soft flesh of his face.

The man's fingers spasmed, flexed out, then relaxed, drawing over the ground like retracting claws, digging shallow trenches through the dirt.

The rock, caked in glistening blood and torn skin, fell to the ground. Shelby wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

Ester whimpered.

"You don't believe any of this, do you, Ester?" Shelby waved at the hills around him. "You don't believe a word Mama said."

For the first time in years, Ester's eyes seemed to focus and clear, and she shook her head, slowly.

"I guess I never believed it neither." He kicked at the ground, shrugged, grabbed the twine that bound his sister and cut her free with his dull pocket knife. "Don't you run when I let you go. We're going home. Just the three of us now."

"Let's go," Shelby said, grabbing her by the elbow, leading her away.

The wind kicked up once more, screeching, stinging Shelby's eyes. He glanced at the body of his false father and thought—for an instant—that the dead man took a breath.

A chill crept along his spine.

Sniffling, he watched for several seconds, but the body did not move again. The wind caught the dead man's shirt-tail, flipped it over his mangled face. Shelby breathed a sigh of relief, nudged the corpse with his foot, and then turned to walk home.

He didn't believe—not anymore—that his true father would return from the spirit world. He didn't know who or what his mother had met over the ancient Indian gravesite. He didn't care anymore. Now he was tired and he wanted to go home. He had done his part.

He had answered the call ... and found nothing.

"We came!" he screamed, warm tears on his face. "We came. All three of us!"

As Shelby and Ester and the third child started to make their way back home, the hills seemed to groan, as if the rock were stretching.

"Shelllby...."

The hairs on the back of Shelby's neck stood on end as he turned. Ester clutched at him. The third child kicked in his arms.

The body of Shelby's father lay on the hill, the face smashed like ripe fruit against the hard earth. The fingers twitched, clawed at the dirt. The legs kicked. The chest rose and fell, rose and fell, in ragged breaths.

The figure struggled to stand. Its legs were weak, like those of a newborn, and blood dribbled to the ground from the ruined face. The torn lips trembled, peeled away from cracked, dislocated teeth.

"Shhhhhelby," the thing rasped again, taking a step in slow pursuit of the three children.

The baby wailed.

Ester shrieked and pulled at her older brother.

Shelby screamed at the sight of his father—his true father.

The thing that wore the tattered body of a dead man stepped toward Shelby, Ester, and the third child.

It would reach them.

And it would take them to a better place.

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The Harrow: Original Works of Fantasy and Horror. ISSN: 1528-4271
The Harrow is published by THE HARROW PRESS^SM