The Hand That Feeds: A Horror Novel (5 page)

“Dr. Taylor I’m not
-”

“You can’t see it,” Dr. Taylor
said. “You’re just as affected by this loss. It’s only that Angela does not have the ability to come out of it by herself.”

John had heard enough. He got to his feet and was surprised to see Dr. Taylor react as if he might have to defend himself.

“Come with me,” John said. “Go see Alex for yourself.”

Dr. Taylor hesitated. He looked over at Angela for a moment. She seemed more aware than a few minutes before. “You’re going to be alright,”
he said to her.

Angela smiled at him
and then sat up. The doctor turned to John and her smile changed to a scowling glare.

“Let us go then,” Dr. Taylor said.

John led him down the hall. He heard Angela get up off the couch, but she didn’t follow them. John opened the door to Alex’s room and then stepped out of the way. Dr. Taylor stepped in the bedroom and was forced to hold his hand over his nose. The stench in the room had festered and the result was nearly unbearable. Dr. Taylor put his bag on the ground and pulled out a few items. He dabbed something under his nose that resembled Vaseline and it allowed him to breathe freely. He approached the side of Alex’s bed with cautious steps. Dr. Taylor looked silently at John, unable to describe Alex’s condition. He held the end of his stethoscope in one hand and as he leaned toward Alex, the boy shook violently.  The doctor pulled the end of Alex’s shirt up revealing a dark blue patchwork of skin. 

John saw Angela step into the room. She was trying to be quiet
, but before he could figure out why, it was too late. She got directly behind the doctor and shoved him as hard as she could. He ended up sprawled on top of Alex with his hands and feet hanging off opposite sides of the bed.

“What
in the hell,” Dr. Taylor said.

John nearly laugh
ed at the sight of him. He didn’t know why Angela pushed him, but it struck his funny bone for a second. The laugh came to a terrifying stop as Alex grabbed a hold of the doctor. The boy leaned his head forward and bit into his shoulder, pulling back a chunk of bloody shirt and meat. John was consumed by a dreadful shock. Alex bit into the doctor again, this time reaching up to his neck. Angela grabbed John’s hand and pulled him away from the bed. They were standing at the doorway before John knew what was happening. Angela’s face was filled with glee, smiling from ear to ear. John couldn’t speak. She closed the door and Dr. Taylor’s screams came to a haunting stop.

6

John sat at the end of the hallway with his back against the wall and his head in his hands.
Dr. Taylor’s screams didn’t last long. The sounds coming from Alex’s room were unbearable and there was little John cold do to escape it. He knew what his son was doing, but his mind couldn’t comprehend it.

Angela sat on the couch in silence. She appeared to be far more in control of herself than John was managing. She sat cross-legged rocking slightly from side to side. John was surprised when she picked up the remote control
and turned on the television.

“What the hell are you doing?”
he asked. He pushed himself up and stumbled into the living room. He felt sick and thought he might throw up. “What the hell are you doing?”

Angela was ignoring him. She clicked the remote and turned the channel. John’s courage failed him and his temper faded. The last thing he wanted to do was fight with her.

“Why don’t you sit down,”
she said, giving him a stern glance. He couldn’t resist once her demanding personality reappeared. “We’re going to have to hide the remains.” She said it as if she was asking him to take out the trash.

He
stared at her blankly, not knowing how to reply.

“I bet we could put
it under the house in the storm cellar,” she said. “We’ll have to put it in trash bags to keep the smell down.”

He wanted to scream at her. He
wanted to reminder her that the it
she was talking about, was Dr. Taylor, but he couldn’t bring himself say it.

“We can’t do this,”
he said.

“We can’t do what exactly?”
she asked as her head snapped around, “We can’t keep our son alive?”

Jo
hn tried to defend himself. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“You would rather your son die?” she asked.

“This is murder.”

John’s words stopped Angela in her tracks. She studied his face for several uncomfortable
seconds. She was working through it like she always did. He’d never had the guts to stand up for himself and she knew it.

“That’s right
, John,” she said. “It’s murder.” She leaned over toward him until their faces were only an inch apart. “Are you going to call the cops?”

John didn’t answer. He knew he should do exactly that. No matter how bad he felt about
Alex, he knew this was wrong.

“Go ahead.”
she leaned back against the couch. “But don’t forget you’re just as much to blame. You didn’t do anything to stop it.”

He could have pulled Dr. Taylor off the bed. He could have
done something, but he didn’t. John didn’t do anything to save him. Angela didn’t look back at him. She continued through the channels until she found the show she was looking for.

John sat in silence as long as he
could; he got up and went to the kitchen without saying another word. He leaned against the counter, staring at the phone. His mind was filled with terrible scenes. He could see Alex grab a hold of the doctor. Visions of what happened when the door was closed were too terrible to think about, but he couldn’t force them away.

John couldn’t pick up the phone. He knew he should call the police
, but Angela’s warning haunted him. The guilt of what he’d done tore at his stomach as the fear of what would happen to him and Angela tormented his mind. He could feel Angela’s eyes on him. She knew she was in control, but he could sense her fear. Angela had things the way she wanted them and she didn’t want him messing it up. For a second, he thought about what she was truly capable of.

“John.
”

Angela’s voice cut through his thou
ghts like a dull knife. He ran into the living room expecting the worse. He found her standing at the entrance to the hall. She wasn’t moving and had her hand up to stop him. It took him a moment to hear the noise. He recognized the scratching at once. It was coming from Alex’s room. Angela’s eyes were impossibly wide as she turned to look at him.

“We have to go in there,” she said.

“I’m not going in there,” John said without thinking.

“It’s your son
, John, and he needs you.”

She moved out of the way. It was
apparent she meant for him to go alone. John rubbed his hand across his face and sweat dripped to the floor as he tried to gather the courage to move. He stepped past his wife and into the darkness of the hall. The scratching sounds were constant, and for a second, he was hopeful that there was some normal explanation. His stomach sank when he studied the light under the door. He could see clearly the shadow of two feet standing behind it.

“Hurry up,
” Angela said.

“I’m going.
”

John waved his hand behind him to brush her off. He
stood outside the door listening. The scratching never stopped. Under the door, he saw wood shavings gathering. The shavings moved slightly with each scratch as the pieces fell to the floor. Panic crept into the back of his mind as he reached for the knob. He knew he had to be quick. Alex couldn’t run as far as he could tell, and John figured if he could get away from the door, he should be able to keep him at bay.

The sequence of events that followed
came from some disturbing comedy. John turned the knob and pushed the door open as hard as he could. He heard the sound of something collapsing on the floor. John stepped inside, shut the door behind him, and ran for the bed. He wasn’t prepared for the sight of Dr. Taylor’s body. At first glance, it was difficult to tell what he was looking at. The blood was overwhelming, covering every inch of the bed. The comforter lay on the floor soaked through with a deep red.

John saw a hand and then a foot. The
two were close together at the end of the bed and neither was connected to the rest of the body. The exposed bones were pushed through the skin in places and picked clean of muscle. The horror of the sight didn’t register until he realized the doctor’s body was facing up.

Dr. Taylor’s face was immortalized in a vicious yell, his mouth still wide open. Lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling as blood drained from bites
along the side of his face. John reached the edge of the bed when he saw the worst of it. One side of the doctor’s neck was missing; the exposed esophagus looked like plastic lying beneath the torn skin.

John moved around
the bed near the lone window before looking back toward the door. Alex was already on his feet. John saw his wretched son lumbering toward him. The boy’s remaining clothes were soaked through with blood. His mouth hung open revealing pieces of flesh. John didn’t have time to think. He leaned down and pushed with both hands at the other side of the bed. His finger dug into something soft and warm, but he didn’t want to look. The bed gave way and slid across the floor with ease.

Alex
didn’t react to the bed, even as it slammed into his thighs. John pinned the boy against the far wall and stepped away. Alex reached out for him and a low moan erupted from his mouth, as the bits of soft tissue fell. His fingers dug into the doctor’s remains still spread out on the bed as he tried to get a hand on his father.

John pulled at the bed sheet until it gave way.
It slipped off and Dr. Taylor’s body came with it. It hit the floor and the mass fell apart as his intestines spilled over onto the hardwood. John moved quickly, wrapping everything up with each corner of the sheet. The bed started to move and he was forced to hold it in place with his foot. Alex’s movements became frantic as he lashed out as if full of life. His face was now consumed by the dark lines beneath his skin, his soulless eyes black as night. John couldn’t take it any longer. He reached for the door and pulled. Angela’s face pushing into the opening nearly caused his heart to stop.

“Hi
, baby.”

John realized she was talking to
Alex. Even as he turned his outstretched hands toward her, she stepped further in his direction. John moved in front of her and pulled the sheet behind him. He forced her out into the hall, bringing Dr. Taylor’s remains with him. He closed the door and leaned against it. He heard the bed push across the floor and a moment later, felt pounding on the other side of the door. The moan was replaced by an indescribable growl that was neither animal nor human. John stepped away and prepared for the door to come down. He reached the middle of the hall before the pounding stopped.

#

John pulled the bloody sheet like a load of wet laundry. He reached the end of the hall and had to stop. He looked back at the long streaks of blood on the floor and felt like he might cry. His mind had no answers for what was happening. In spite of everything, it was Angela who scared him most. She was back on the couch; watching television as if nothing happened. He saw the excitement on her face when she came in Alex’s room. She’d looked at Alex like he was reaching out to give her a hug. John knew her mind was a fragile thing; he’d lived through many episodes where he thought he might lose her for good, but this was beyond imagination.

He
continued dragging the remains of Dr. Taylor through the dining room, out the back door, and into the backyard. Blood covered everything along the way. John knew what he was doing was wrong, but fought with himself over the justification.
I can’t let my son go
, he thought. John continued the thought over and over until it stuck. He would lose Angela without Alex. He couldn’t give up his entire family.

He
reached the side of the house, let the sheet go, and studied the lock holding the storm cellar doors closed. It took him a while to remember the combination. It unlocked when he slid in the number to Alex’s birthday. “You did good,” he said, looking down at Dr. Taylor’s exposed remains. “You helped someone today.” John smiled for the first time in a while. Somehow, it was beginning to make sense. Most parents would do anything for their children. Most men would do anything for their family.

“This is no different.”

He felt better. He could feel the doubt somewhere in his mind, but it was losing its grip on him fast. He pulled the storm cellar doors open and looked down inside. There was a narrow set of stairs leading into the darkness under the house. John grabbed the edge of the sheet and pulled as he stepped cautiously down one-step at a time.

John was consumed by the darkness.
He waved his hand around looking for the light’s pull string and heard something bounce down the stairs. Fear crept over him in an instant. He felt the dirty string hit against his hand and then swing away. Frantically, he let go of the sheet and reached out with both hands.

Like a stumbling blind man, John felt defenseless. The string hit him in the face and he nearly ripped it off, pulling as hard as he could. The single light bulb came to life and washed the room with a pale
, yellow, glow. John spun around expecting something to lunge at him. He found Dr. Taylor’s remains lying open and still. John’s eyes ran the length of the stairs up toward the opening.

The blood touched each stair
, but there was no sign of anything hunting him in the dark. It took him a few minutes to catch his breath. He stared at Dr. Taylor and realized what had happened. The doctor’s head was no longer attached. It lay on the cold dirt floor a few feet away. The remaining pieces of the neck had torn away as he pulled the body down the stairs and it rolled off by itself.

John decided not to spend any more time down in the cellar than he had to. He pushed the body up against the back wall and tossed the edges of the sheet over the top.
He grabbed Dr. Taylor’s decapitated head and threw it in the general direction of the body, and then pulled the light string on his way to the stairs. He went back in the house and headed for the kitchen. The television was on, but Angela was missing. He peered down the hall and found the door to Alex’s room closed. He noticed the front door to the house was locked and dead bolted.

H
e reached the kitchen sink, turned on the hot water, and let it run. His hands were covered in blood. He reached under the sink and pulled out the bottle of extra strength cleaning gel he used for really tough stains. It took him a while, but he managed to get the blood off his skin and out from under his fingernails.

He wiped his hands dry
and then pulled a beer from the fridge. He heard the sound of water running in the back of the house and headed to the hall with a beer in hand. John realized that the blood on the floor and in the hall was gone. He found a mop leaning against the wall near his bedroom door. The bucket of water beside it was stained crimson. He took a long drink from his beer and then proceeded to his bedroom.

He could tell the water was coming from the master bath. John stepped into his bedroom and
found Angela’s clothes in a pile on the floor at the foot of the bed. He downed the rest of his beer and put the bottle on the nightstand. He peeked in through the bathroom door and saw Angela lying in the tub with her head back against the edge. Her eyes met his and she smiled. The anger was missing from her face. She looked relaxed as if everything in the world was okay.

“You looking for something,” she asked.