Bloodline

The family curse takes a bite out of another generation

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

This short story is presented for personal entertainment only. Commercial and all other use is expressly prohibited.

(c) 2015-2017 Robert Horseman, All rights reserved.

The air in the old refrigerator smelled of mildew, and it was getting hot and stuffy in the dark confining space. I fought down the edge of panic for the tenth time, trying to convince myself that they wanted me alive. It was a hard sell though, since I had heard the distinctive sound of duct tape being pulled off a roll just after they had tossed me in. A lot of duct tape. Sure they could cut it off, but why use duct tape at all unless they never meant to let me out, and there was the little fact that they’d never used it like this before. I forced myself to be calm, and pressed my ear to the back of the refrigerator door. The muffled sounds of a loud card game could be heard. There was a metallic whine, and the old compressor kicked on. A blast of chilly air ran down my back, and I shivered. I wasn’t going to yell or scream, because it wouldn’t do any good. Besides, I’d rather die than show fear to my father and uncles, God rot them. A chair scraped, followed by a thump on the door. “How’s it going in there, sport? Air getting’ a bit thin? Gosh, it sure is nice out here, especially without all your whinin’.” Another thump low on the door. “Sorry kid, but this is your last chance. Do it or die tryin’. You’re worthless to us without the curse.” My father’s voice. I knew what they all wanted, of course. They wanted me to disappear into the Unreal. They said that a state of hypoxia, whatever that was, helped start the first crossover. Anger seethed in my veins, even as my breathing quickened in an attempt to absorb what little breathable air was left. Tears fell, and I pounded on the door. “Bastards,” I screamed. It came out as a hoarse croak. My knees let go, and I slid to the bottom in a fetal position. It was getting hard to keep my eyes open. I panted, and a headache formed behind my eyes. Sparks danced in my vision, and a burning sensation rippled across my skin. They had described it to me many times, the heritage of my paternal blood line. I shook uncontrollably, praying it would be over soon one way or another. I was ready to die. The refrigerator door in front of me began to glow with a ghostly blue light, and a moment later I could make out the indistinct shapes of three people sitting around a card table. The voices outside had stopped abruptly, and all three heads were turned in my direction. Lips moved in slow animated conversation, but I heard nothing. Sound couldn’t cross the Unreal boundary. I was over. My great great great grandfather Malcolm Falco’s diary had been required reading, of course. Any male child who showed the slightest hint of the curse had to read it. Somewhere along the descendents line, one of the cursed had learned to use it to steal without any risk of being caught, and devised various ways to force the curse to the surface in his descendents. The refrigerator torture was just the latest. The still-sealed door appeared translucent, and I stepped through it into the room. Time crawled by slowly in the Unreal, and the three men rose ponderously to their feet. I was invisible to them, if the diary was correct. They had probably just noted the end of my mewling. I had often wondered what I would do if I made it into the Unreal, and had devised a wide range of revenge for the years of casual torture at the hands of my father and uncles. My mother and two sisters knew what was going on, but had been almost as much a victim as me. They spent their days in silent terror. Had my father and uncles known my innermost thoughts, they never would have kept torturing me. They had been mildly curious when I had taken an interest in human anatomy. It was probably unusual for an eleven year old boy to bring home medical books from the library, but I had needed information. Information on human vulnerabilities. A person in the Unreal can affect the physical world in limited ways, mainly by pulling things into the Unreal with them. That made it ideal for theft. It also made it ideal for homicide. My Uncle Carlos was a creep. He was tall and lean, with black hair that he kept slicked back from a receding hairline. His wife knew of his many affairs, and in fact we all did. He bragged about them at every opportunity. He had stolen a fortune in jewelry at a young age before the Unreal had rejected him at nineteen, and he had been living on the proceeds of his earlier thievery ever since. I pursed my lips, considered my options, and decided. I reached down, grabbed his crotch through his trousers with both hands, and yanked his penis and testicles into the Unreal with me. His femoral arteries pulsed jets of blood onto the floor in a slow spray. His face took a moment to register shock, and I dropped his wet, disgusting organs. He slowly fell to his knees, his face contorting in a silent scream. I turned my attention to Uncle Luciano, the small group’s accountant, who was responsible for gradually doling out the proceeds from sales of stolen property. He was a florid man who never had the family curse, but instead had an eidetic memory. It enabled him to keep all thefts and proceeds records in his head. He stared in shock as his brother fell face forward onto the floor amidst a spreading pool of blood, his jaw hanging slack. He should have started running as my father had, not that it would have done him any good. Determining a fitting death for him was more difficult. Did he deserve to die? Probably, since he had been a willing party to my torture. But did he deserve to die a painful, humiliating death? Maybe not. Better to take his prized memory. It might kill him anyway. I reached up and through his skull with one hand, and pulled a chunk of brain matter into the Unreal with me in a crude hippocampus lobectomy. His eyes rolled up and he fell into a boneless heap on the floor. I dry heaved and dropped the gray bloody mass. I turned to the door, and saw my father running down the short hallway to the loading door in the back. I casually followed. 30 Years Later “I’m here to see Mister Falco.” The receptionist of the Cedar Creek Nursing House glanced up, her eyes wide. “Mister Falco? Umm, certainly Sir. Have you visited him before?” “No ma’am, this is my first time,” I said. “Well then, you will need to fill out this form,” she said, and handed me a clipboard. “I will also need to see some identification. Are you a relation?” “Yes. Mister Falco is my father, and I’m his guarantor. I’m paying for his stay here.” She snatched the clipboard back and said, “In that case, we should have all your information on file. I just need your identification.” I handed her my driver’s license, which she compared to information on her computer screen, and her eyes went wide. “Doctor Falco? The renowned surgeon?” I nodded. “This is an unexpected honor, sir.” She handed back my license and said, “It’s just after lunch, so your father should be available. I’ll have someone come up from his unit to escort you in. Please have a seat and wait. It shouldn’t be long.” Ten minutes later a male orderly in a white smock called my name from a set of double doors, and I fell into step beside him. The nursing home was clean but spartan, intended more for catatonic patients requiring little stimulation than for more active seniors. “Mister Falco doesn’t receive many visitors. In fact, in the twelve years I’ve been here, I think you are the first. I understand you’re family?” “He’s my father.” He raised an eyebrow but said nothing further. He probably thought I was an uncaring son, and would be right in any case. He paused outside a door at the end of the long corridor and said, “We’ll check in on you in an hour. There’s a call box on the wall if you need any assistance.” I thanked him, pushed the door open, and entered. My father sat seated in a hospital bed with his upper body restrained by straps to keep him erect. A window looked out on green lawns, and a television blared in the corner. When he saw me, his eyes narrowed and he made a feeble attempt to spit at me. He was gaunt, with sunken eyes, hollow cheekbones, and several days of beard growth. Gray wisps were all that was left of his once thick black hair. I reached up, turned off the television, and said, “Thirty years to the day. Thirty years since you and your brothers tried to kill me. Thirty years since I killed them both and turned you into a mute quadriplegic. Nice to see you too, Dad.” His mouth worked, but I did not bother trying to lip-read. I approached his bed and held out my right hand. “You and your brothers were idiots. You called it the curse, something you tried to exploit for personal gain. And because of that, it abandoned you and your brothers at a young age. That’s why you needed me, wasn’t it? You couldn’t steal for yourself anymore.” I put my extended hand into the Unreal, keeping the rest of my body in normal space. “It never left me. In fact, I can do a lot more than you or your brothers ever dreamed of.” I pushed my faintly visible hand into his neck, made a few rapid repairs to the vocal chords I had crudely damaged as a child, and withdrew it. “There now, good as new. What do you have to say for yourself?” “Nurse”, he rasped, in a barely audible voice. “That’s pointless, dear father. If you yell, I’ll just redo the damage and claim I called them.” He slumped. “What do you want?” “Well, I pay for your stay here, so I thought I’d come by and inspect my investment.” “Investment huh? What are you, a banker now? That would be poetic justice, in a way.” “No, actually I’m a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA. If you remember, I rather liked anatomy, and thought I might be able to use my gift in that capacity.” He looked at me for a long moment. “You can heal my spine, can’t you? Make me whole again.” I nodded. “Yes, I could. I’ve done it several times. Miracle cures, they’ve called them. Is that what you want?” “You killed my brothers and stole thirty years from me. I’m an empty old man. I don’t want anything from you. I just want to die. I’m sick of living.” “As I recall, you and your brothers tortured me for three years, and finally decided to kill me if I couldn’t get into the Unreal. I did what I had to do to survive. Thirty years seems like a just sentence to me. Should I have killed you instead?” “It would have been kinder than this living hell.” I smiled. “Rather like torture, isn’t it.” He sighed. “Why are you here? What’s the real reason?” “To give you a choice.” “What choice.” “If you ask me nicely, I will reverse your spinal injury. It will take years of rehabilitation to learn how to move and walk again, but you have time left in you.” “I see. And the other choice?” I held out my hand with a pill in it. “I put this in your mouth. If you swallow it, you’ll be dead in a week.” “What’s in it?” “Does it matter?” “No, I don’t suppose it does.” He stared at the pill for a long moment, then met my eyes. “How is my wife? My daughters?” “If they wanted you to know, they’d have told you themselves. They’ve known where you have been the entire time.” His face seemed to age another ten years in that moment, and he looked out the window. His voice, when he spoke, was a bare whisper. “Give it to me.”

•••••The End •••••