I’d worked with Helen for a few years before her father died.  She was a quiet woman, always reserved and meticulous in the lab.  Some of the other techs called her “cold” or “too weird.”  I just figured her the private type.

We worked together in the basement of the natural history museum on campus, stashed away in a windowless box next to the offices for graduate teaching assistants.   We spent our days stripping the flesh from dead mammals so they could reconstruct their skeletons.  We used beetles, these little black lumps called Dermestidae—skin beetles.  Toss a poor, dead piece of road kill in a stainless steel container with some larvae, and the growing beetles lick the bones clean within a week.  Our boss used to say, “They’re carnivores.  They eat the flesh of the dead.”

Helen received the call about her father while at work, and she didn’t even flinch.  She only missed one day for the funeral, a private affair, and stayed late at work the next night.

In the days after her father’s stroke, Helen looked a little off—her face pale and stretched—tired maybe.  The only thing she’d say about him was, “he was not a nice man.”  About a week after the funeral, I noticed bruises while we worked together scrubbing residue from small mammal femurs.

“Helen, your arm,” I said.

She pulled down her shirt cuff. “It’s nothing.”

After I mentioned the bruises, she started wearing long sleeves.  Black bags puffed under her eyes.  She faded, bleached like a field of snow, pinched together and gaunt, like she wasn’t sleeping much.  Maybe a rough boyfriend, I thought, especially if her father had been abusive. I imagined there had been abuse in her past, but my theory rested on gossip and interpretation of Helen’s stock line:  “He was not a nice man.”

Fear for Helen’s safety grew in my stomach, scratching away like a ball of nails until it spilled over one night after work. Helen faded like a ghost through the lab doors, and I followed her.

Filled with worry and concern—as a friend and coworker, I drove to her apartment.  She lived in a little place near what we called the student ghetto, the run-down houses and squat apartments that served as home to a good number of undergraduates.  She didn’t answer the bell and the front door was locked.  I heard something—a muffled voice from inside.

I wouldn’t usually sneak around in the bushes like some kind of half-crocked private eye, but the voice scared me, sent a chill across the back of my neck.  I crept to the side of the house, and the voice grew clearer.  It was Helen.

“Please, Daddy!” she shouted, followed by a dull whacking sound.

I balanced on her air-conditioner, caught the lip of her bedroom window with my fingers, and pulled myself to tip-toe so I could peer inside.  Helen was alone in the room, flogging herself with something that looked like a short stick or bat, but a yellowish white—a human femur stripped clean of its flesh as only Dermestidae could.  A skull, her father’s skull, sat on the dresser, watching over his daughter’s self-abuse with a gallows grin.  Helen’s face, though smeared with tears, wore a small ghost of a smile.  When the police came, they found the rest of him in her bathtub, his assorted parts in various states of decomposition amid a swarm of beetles.

—
© 2009 Aaron Polson

When Aaron Polson isn’t arguing about the definition of irony with his English students, he can be found chipping away at a twisted tale in his basement dungeon.  He currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife, two sons, and a tattooed rabbit, enjoying every mood swing in the Midwest weather.  His stories have appeared in Necrotic Tissue, Northern Haunts (Shroud), Monstrous (Permuted Press), and other publications.  You can visit him on the web at www.aaronpolson.com.

The bright wreaths, teddy bears, and colorful drawings were out of place in the somber décor of the Kurtis Brother’s Funeral Parlor, but a child’s funeral was never a normal affair. At the front of the chapel, flanked by flowers and mourners, sat the open coffin of little Tommy Bellinger, age three and a half, his face yellow wax, his hair too orderly, and his expression too dour. A small, sky-blue blanket rested under his folded hands.

“What’s with the blanket?”

Kyle Kurtis, always respectful in his black suit and conservative tie, placed a hand on his junior partner’s shoulder, led him a few steps toward the back of the room, and bent to his ear. “The mother insisted. Said the kid never went anywhere without it. Said he was holding it when the truck—well, you know.”

“Oh.” The younger man glanced at the coffin and then to the sober couple in black at its right.
Kurtis shrugged. “The customer is always right.”

Later that night, after the wake was over and all the relatives were tucked neatly into motel rooms across town, Jacob Bellinger woke to the clanging of trash cans being dumped outside his bedroom window. He half-rose from bed and leaned on an elbow, kneading his forehead with the other hand. “Shit.”

“Jake?”

“Sorry to wake you, Mags.”

Another crash.

“Ah hell,” he muttered. “Gillespie’s dogs are at it again. Or one of those damn raccoons I’ve been reading about in the paper.”

Maggie Bellinger rolled off the side of the bed, tucked wisps of brown hair behind both ears, and shuffled around the footboard toward the window. “I wasn’t sleeping. I couldn’t sleep.” She stopped short of the window and wrapped her arms over both shoulders in a self-hug.

Jacob closed his eyes and nodded his head slowly. He rose and caught his wife, squeezing her gently with his long arms. “I wish I could—”

Another muted crash from outside the house interrupted him.

“Those goddamn dogs. I’ll have to chase them away. Maybe call the cops.” He pushed his naked feet into a pair of plaid slippers.

The phone rang, startling them both, and Maggie scanned the alarm clock on Jacob’s dresser. “11:14. Who would be calling now…with the funeral tomorrow?” She drifted to the phone and lifted it from the cradle.

Probably Gillespie telling me those god-forsaken mutts are loose again. Jacob started for the door, wondering whether he should grab his broom or air rifle this time, when another sound, almost like the sob of a child, wrenched his attention to the window.

“Mr. Kurtis?” Maggie’s voice was as and pale as her cheeks. “What…I don’t understand…” She began to shake.

Through the window, Jacob Bellinger watched a shape, a dark shadow too tall for a dog, rummage through the strewn trash. The side of the house was dark, but he could see the form, the size of a child, flit around in the gloom.

“Maggie…it’s a burglar…I think. Definitely a person. A short one.” Jacob’s voice was hushed and serious. He turned to face his wife, her face sucked white save for the heavy bags of faded purple under each eye. “Mags…what is it?” Fear pressed against Jacob’s back.

“The funeral home.” She spoke as a robot. “Tommy…they called the police…this has never happened….”

Jacob clenched his fists against the cold fingers walking his spine. “What is it?”

“The body is gone…Tommy is gone. Missing.”

Another almost-human cry sounded outside followed by a thud. The cold fingers wrapped around the back of Jacob’s neck. It’s impossible. Impossible. He shivered. A terrible realization coiled in his brain. “Oh god…he’s looking for it…”

Maggie stumbled to the bed and sat on the corner; tears skated down her cheeks. Her eyes, wide and lost, burned toward her husband. “Who? Jacob, what are you saying?”

Jacob staggered to the window, his back pressing against the cold glass. “I—I replaced Tommy’s blankie with a new one. Fuzzy was dirty, Mags. Stained. I threw it away. I—I didn’t think—”

Maggie, fueled with grief and horror, sprang from the bed and shoved past her husband to the window. Her eyes searched the shadows outside and saw it moving below, something the size of her son, hunched over the spilled trash, searching. “He never goes anywhere without his blankie,” she whispered.

Jacob slumped against the wall, shaking his head. “I…I didn’t think he’d know the difference…”

—
©2009 Aaron Polson

When Aaron Polson isn’t arguing about the definition of irony with his English students, he can be found chipping away at a twisted tale in his basement dungeon. He currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife, two sons, and a tattooed rabbit, enjoying every mood swing in the Midwest weather. His stories have appeared in Necrotic Tissue, Northern Haunts (Shroud), Monstrous (Permuted Press), and other publications. You can visit him on the web at www.aaronpolson.com.