“Just repeat after me,” my mother whispers.
I repeat the words she says even though they mean nothing to me. And when she grabs my head and draws my lips into hers, I don’t fight back.
Her tongue is a cobweb in my mouth.
Locked in the Wedding Tower
A second zombie stumbles up the aisle. The book-reading zombie throws the book aside and grabs my mother, restraining her arms behind her back. The other zombie grabs me in the same manner.
I think of breaking free, running into the crowd, trying to climb over the wall. I would fail, no doubt, but wouldn’t that be better than impregnating my own mother, better than suffering through the night only to be executed in the morning?
“Give us a child, give us a child,” the crowd chants.
The zombie holding my mother’s arm removes a metal key from within its dusty ribcage. The zombie shoves the key into the lock.
The heavy wooden door swings open, creaking on broken hinges.
The crowd leans forward as one big ugly creature, trying to catch a glimpse of the staircase.
Tears drip off my chin and I scream a final time, “I will fuck this farm to death.”
I hope that Pym is around to hear my final outcry.
The zombie holding my arms pushes me forward.
I step into the wedding tower for the first time.
We climb the staircase awkwardly. I stumble over every step, unable to keep my balance because of the strangle-hold the zombie has on me. My mother, who has been dragged up these stairs on numerous occasions, ascends with grace.
The zombie holding me finally grows impatient, grunts angrily, and throws me down. Unable to catch myself, I crash face-first on the sharp wedge of a stair. I feel my right cheek split wide open. I bite my tongue, severing the tip and maybe more.
The zombie drags me by the hair to the top of the wedding tower. I spit blood and teeth all the way up.
My mother is thrown down on the floor beside me.
She takes my face in her hands, inspecting the gash that has destroyed my cheek.
We both flinch when the door slams. The lock grinds into place. We are trapped in the high chamber of the wedding tower.
When I leave this place, it will be for my execution.
My mother shoves the bleeding side of my face into her tattered dress. She strokes my hair as her dress soaks up blood.
There is a slight scuffling sound on the other side of the door. My mother must feel me tense up. She says, “Don’t worry. They will not return tonight. They’re only fighting over which of them must stay behind on the farm. The one who stays will perform the execution in the morning.”
Soon the scuffle ends and we hear the loud echo of boots stomping down the staircase.
“Give us a child, give us a child,” the crowd chants outside, but their voices are nothing more than a muffled drone.
“No children,” I say, letting the world go black around me. “No children.”
The words stick like mush on my ruined tongue.
The Scream is Not My Own
“Come on, son, it is time for us to make love.”
My mother stands up and tries to pull me after her.
I sink down beneath the window sill and place my bleeding face between my knees.
“Get the fuck away from me,” I say.
When I look up, my mother is writhing around on the bed. She begs me to please impregnate her. She throws the pillows to the floor, promising to throw herself out the window this instant if I persist in refusing to give her a child. She tries to stand up, apparently to plunge to her death, but her legs are tangled in the blanket from all the writhing. She throws her arms up as her body, wrapped in a blanket cocoon, drops to the floor with a padded thud.
“Fine, I give up,” she says. “If you won’t fuck me, then kill me.”
She wiggles out of the blanket and tears from it a long strip of fabric.
“You can strangle me with this,” she says.
I blink stupidly.
“What’s it going to be?” she says, gesturing with the shred of blanket.
“What do you mean?”
“If you’re not going to fuck me, you’re going to kill me.”
“Mother, I can’t do either of those things.”
She breaks down on the floor, crying. “Please, just kill me or give me a baby. I’m not afraid to die, but please, don’t leave me at the mercy of the dead people. If you kill me now, at least I won’t feel alone. I don’t want to die alone.”
I bite my wounded cheek by accident.
“Please,” she begs.
I get up and take the fabric from her. I twist it into a noose.
“Do it right over here,” she says. She rises and steps beneath a buzzing bulb hanging by a string from the ceiling. The light that never goes out is not that impressive.
Tears have cleared pink circles around my mother’s eyes.
The rest of her face is grimy and brown with dried barbecue sauce.
She smiles. My mother is fairly good-looking. She is not beautiful, but her body is strong and toned and her face is kind and round. She would have made a good wife a long time ago.
“This is where your father embraced me. He kissed me on the mouth, swept me off my feet, and carried me to the wedding bed.”
She gazes out the window. I stand behind her now, watching her sway back and forth gently, as if she is being held by someone
“You had better do it now,” she says.
And I know right then that the saddest things in life are always just ahead. First I lost Pym. Now I will kill my mother. Then my mother will be dead, leaving me alone until my own life ends tomorrow. Yes, the saddest things are always just ahead.
Numbly, I draw the noose around her neck and tighten it. After a few seconds, her fingers dig into the knotted sheet. Her arms swing back, trying to reach me. I tighten my hold, gritting my teeth. She slumps forward onto the sill of the window with a clunk. Her knees buckle and she slides onto the floor.
I close my eyes and look out the window to avoid the sight of her corpse. I feel filthy and violated.
Torches flicker in the distance. The cattle are feasting and drinking. I can hear the faint hum of voices carried up on the breeze. Even up here, I smell the barbecue. I feel a stab of rage, wishing that I’d had the nerve to stop that mustachioed bastard from stealing my last meal.
There are no bars across this window.
Mother could have jumped. She could have taken her own life and spared me the guilt.
I look down and remember the trouble with jumping.
It’s the cage beneath the tower window. Beneath the window, a cage made out of bones rises out of the earth.
The cage yawns like a hungry mouth, ready to swallow anyone who jumps. The bone cage is structured so that nobody who jumps dies. The cage breaks their fall, saves them so the dead people can find them alive in the morning. The dead flay jumpers. I’ve seen it happen once or twice.
I cannot blame my mother for choosing not to be flayed alive.
I glance over at my mother and feel betrayed, angry, cheated out of some unknown pleasure, but I did the right thing.
She is dead now anyway. No retarded bastard child can be born. This will not hurt anyone.
I close my eyes and conjure up Pym’s face, her smooth white skin, her little white tongue, her cool, bright eyes.
I open my eyes and close my mouth and bury my face in my hands.
The screaming continues when I close my mouth.
I lift my head and look toward the window, where the screams are coming from.
Pym is at the window, hanging from the ledge.
It’s she who’s screaming now.