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Irish writer Sam Millar is winner of the Brian Moore Short Story Award and was runner-up in The Cork Literary Review Awards. He has been published in Books Ireland, The Burning Bush (Ireland) Lexicon, Cadenza, Voyage, Buzzwords, Acid Angel (UK) A-List, Write Gallery, Short Stories Magazine (USA) and Southern Ocean Review (New Zealand). He is married and has three kids.
This story was published in Albedo One issue 25. It received an honourable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.
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an Albedo One story
From his house, the boy watched as snow fell in thick leaves, swirling tightly in a rage at the base of the old shop across the street.
He had always loved the solitary feel of the old abandoned shop with its fearful loneliness avoided by others.
He had always loved it, but now he hated it.
It had always been derelict; at least as far back as he could remember. Pigeons made their home in it, as did rats and the stray, wild cats that spat at you and chased the dogs, leaving their snouts a bloody mess.
He remembered -hating to remember - how he had climbed in through the back window, searching for something that he knew couldn't be there. The dark drew him in, seducing with its magnetic pull, knowing the weakness of curiosity that the young possess.
The smell of human waste was overpowering, as he entered, almost a living being.
As his eyes adjusted to the cobwebbed-filled interior, to his horror the shop was carpeted by the carcasses of dead birds, their fragile bones gleaming like hulls from tiny ships caught in the rocks, blending wickedly into an origami of shadows and repulsiveness.
The ever-skilful rats had been proficient in stripping the flesh. It was a massacre, a feasting of the dead, and he was baffled how creatures of flight could have been captured so easily.
Only when he stumbled on the two birds, each crucified to the beams, their necks twisted into grotesque, feathered question marks, did he realise the rats had only played a meagre part in the bloody pantomime.
A shudder iced his spine. What if the killer was still in the shop, watching him this minute, knife in hand? No one would know. They hadn't seen him enter. The killer could leave him dying in his own blood, just like the ugly birds pinioned to the mast, staring at him in disbelief, at his stupidity in remaining.
Then the rats would come, finishing the job…
The shop's acoustics echoed behind him in the darkness, making his heart thump, his face swell with rushing blood. He wanted to ask who's there but feared it would expose him, so he moved slowly across the room, as if swimming in a morass of sand. If he could only make it another few feet, freedom would sweep him away to safety, away from whatever lurked there, watching him.
Suddenly, the sound of feet crushing glass made his hair tight, burning his scalp. Liquid was flooding his brain and he could no longer think. Was it his feet, or someone else's that had made the sound?
He heard a laugh, so soft it was almost silent, meant for his ears only, sinister and deliberate.
Not thinking, not caring, he took a chance and ran. He had only one thought and that was to escape. He wouldn't die, not here with the dead.
It was funny how John Wayne always made it look so easy, jumping through windows of a saloon as the bad guys shot at him. But he was no John Wayne. He was a failure, and the perfect casement of glass suddenly became a kaleidoscopic pattern, all in slow motion, as he tumbled to the ground watching his blood hit it before he did, the shreds of glass following him, piercing every inch of skin.
Afterwards, he could only remember the pain as he drifted in and out of needle-induced nightmares, screaming for water to be thrown on his face, stop the burning heat that came from it. People with masks floated above him, surrounding the face of his mother.
Scarred for life, he remembered her voice whispering, contradicting the specialist, sitting there in his fat leather chair, manipulating the shadows on his face, obscuring clarity of expression. "They will fade", he said, his voice a politician. "Given time, he'll hardly notice them."
But four years had passed and there had been no fading, either of scars or memory. If anything, the opposite was true.
He would have gone insane had it not been for his plastic models of the Werewolf, Dracula and Frankenstein with whom he found comfort and friendship.
The plastic monsters were the only therapy he needed, not doctors. They sustained him, building his confidence as he meticulously attached each intricate and tiny piece together, shaping them, giving life to them.
At night, with the lights dead, they would glow eerily, like a lighthouse bathed in fog, guarding him against the completeness of isolation.
Just as he was about to close the curtains of his window, his eyes captured a small blue car coming into view, its loneliness augmented by the starkness of the deserted street.
It stopped at the entrance of the shop and an old man emerged to stand at the doorway, nodding to himself in a world of his own.
Every now and then he would quickly scribble something into a tiny pocket book, wetting the pencil with the carpet of his tongue, staining it black.
"What was he doing?" said the boy, out loud to no one but his monsters, as he watched the car disappear into the snow, its liquorice tyre marks chasing it.
A feeling came to him at that exact moment but he quickly erased it, as he had done many times before, not wanting to set his hopes high.
If the shop were to change, be transformed into something. - anything - perhaps he would change and it would no longer have the power to make him wince with terror each time he saw it.
If he were a good boy, he would have whispered a nice wee prayer to God. But he wasn't nice, and God didn't exist.
* * *
Months passed and the old shop remained unused. Then one Saturday he watched as men with tools piled planks of wood outside the shop, talking loudly to each other.
His heart skipped a fraction. It was happening, he told himself. Don't look at it. You'll jinx yourself. They'll disappear.
Expectation began to swell in his chest, but doubt, heavy as an anvil kept it firmly in place.
Normally, he hated Saturdays. All the other kids in the street loved Saturday, but they didn't have to endure all the nonsense that he had to handle. He would much prefer staying in his room, putting the finishing touches to The Mummy's Vengeance.
At least it was raining outside, he told himself, plus he had the added advantage of being up while most people in the street slept. No one would see him, he hoped.
First on his agenda were the boxes of apples from his mother's trees.
As he approached the fruit shop, he stopped to watch the horses utilised by the local glazier. They stood in unison, eating, pissing and shiting. They never stopped, their arses perpetually pushing out fist-size boulders with slivers of undigested straw protruding from them like burnt cacti. Kamikaze sparrows darted in and out between the horses' legs capturing the spillage.
Sometimes his mother made him scoop up the dung to fertilise the trees, much to the amusement of the kids in the street. He had wanted to poison the horses, burn down the trees, make his mother eat her precious dung, and even though these were only thoughts, they became at times so tangible he could taste them, boring deep down into his skull, as if searching for oil.
He took a deep breath before entering the fruit shop, before having to deal with Richardson, the green grocer from hell.
"Ah! Young Gary!" exclaimed Richardson, crowbar in hand. "Good to see you're not like the rest of the dirty dogs, sleeping in their beds on a beautiful morning like this." It was still pissing outside.
Dead, supine flies lined the window of the store like a contiguous military convey debilitated by superior forces, while their air-borne comrades struggled above, stuck on dusty flypaper.
Gary stared at the adhesive, fascinated by its struggling victims trying, in vain, to detach themselves from the sticky graveyard. It always reminded him of the currant buns sold next door in Mullan's bakery. He had never eaten one in his life.
Richardson squeezed the teeth of the crowbar between the lips of the banana crate and with slight movement of his elbow, popped the wood asunder.
"How many, young Gary?" asked Richardson, a giant with tight clothes. The man's large stomach had sheltered too many beers for its own good.
"Fifty, Mister Richardson," squeaked Gary. He hated this part, the barter of apples.
Richardson handled one of the apples, rubbing his thumb against the texture, smelling it with his giant nostrils.
"Four cabbages. Howsabouthathen?" He said this as one word.
"My ma said five cabbages, four carrots and a stone of blue spuds."
Gary wished Richardson would speed it up, in case one of his schoolmates came in for a toffee-apple, witnessing his humiliation.
"Ha! Yer ma's arse is out the window!" laughed Richardson, who was now juggling some of the apples, like a clown, into the air, winking as he pretended to allow them to fall. "But you've caught me in a generous mood. Four cabbages. And here's some carrots as well."
Gary was not in the mood this morning, so he didn't argue.
As he left the shop, Richardson handed him a pear. It was badly bruised and had teeth marks in it. "Here, that's for you. And tell yer ma she's gotta get up early to catch me!"
Gary could still hear the laughter halfway down the lane and he knew his mother would look on the exchange with disdain.
"That's all?" she asked as he entered the living room.
Tiny needles of pain began to burn his skull.
"Why didn't you go yourself, then?" he answered, watching her face flush. A few weeks ago he wouldn't have answered his her back, but she was becoming just like the trees: hateful.
Suddenly, the pressure on the edge of his skull began to ease into an acceptable throb. Pleasurable, almost.
* * *
A week later and the old shop had been transformed into the new barber's. It would be a godsend for the men in town who traveled at least three miles, on foot, to have their hair cut.
A few days after the initial opening a 'Help Wanted' sign was placed in the window.
Gary stared at the sign from his room. It was teasing - no, torturing - him, whispering for him to return, to be friends.
But he knew his mother would not permit him to take the job and he was more than surprised when she said she would consider it.
Then surprise changed to anger.
Consider it? How could she allow me to enter that place after all I have gone through? Had she being doing her job as a so-called mother, perhaps I would not have these scars for the rest of my life, nor her crocodile tears.
But he said nothing, simply smiled at her, like a fox hiding in the dark of night.
Yes. You do just that. But while you consider that, consider this, also: One day the oil is gonna come bursting out, like a geyser, all hot and sticky. There were times when he tried - and succeeded - to keep these terrible feelings for her consecutively, allowing each a life of its own, each dominating the other in equal periods. But most times the darkness ruled, bullying out the decency that he knew he possessed but hated for its weakness. He thought the darkness like ink seeping destructively into bread, destroying all that was good in him.
Stop, he admonished himself. You're not to blame. She is.
* * *
So, you've come at last?" said the old man, scissors in hand, clipping perfect shapes from the flawed head of a customer.
"What do you mean? Am I not allowed to come in for a haircut?" said Gary, indignantly.
"Of course! Of course! Silly me. I thought you had come for the job - at least for the summer, get some money in your pocket. But not to worry, I believe another boy is interested." Both the barber and customer smiled at their reflections in the mirror.
A stone of fear moved in his stomach, sliding downwards like acid.
"Did I say I wasn't interested?"
"Are you?" smiled the old man, knowing the answer.
Gary started that afternoon, sweeping puddles of hair, making tea and reading the comics. Occasionally, he wiped the mirrors on the wall, keeping his eyes glazed, as if in a trance, not seeing his face. It had been over two years since last he saw his face. He doubted if he would ever look at it again.
As time went by, Gary started to love the shop. It was an emporium of treasures so delicious they hurt his heart: sweets harboured in jars lined the groaning shelves; towers of American comic books piled haphazardly, waiting to collapse; shrunken, rubber heads dangled ghoulishly from the nicotine ceiling. Religious paraphernalia sat incongruously with magazines of half-naked women, decapitated corpses and Mafia rub-outs - appropriately enough - in barber chairs.
A Brylcreem poster of Denis Compton, cricket bat in hand, proudly proclaimed: Perfectly set for the day.
This is home. This is what it should be all about, thought Gary as he watched the barber wield his magic on a customer.
The old barber, razor in hand, quickly attended the soapy face, making a swathe in the air before resting it on the man's pliable throat and protruding Adam's apple the size of a robin's egg.
With a slight, invisible movement, the old man removed the soap, leaving the customer's cheeks gleaming a pink red, not unlike a baby's bum.
Power, thought Gary, watching the stubble vanish. To make something disappear, with such ease, is true power.
The old barber broke his thoughts. "One day, Gary, you will be able to do this. You will become the best barber the town has ever known. They will remember you forever…"
The crackling static of an old Bakelite wireless nipped at his neck as the classical music of Puccin's Madama Butterfly floated abstrusely about the shop, appreciated by no one except the old barber who prayed for the last pangs of day when he would sit, upstairs, listening to his beloved music.
Once, not too long ago, Gary slipped up the stairs, hiding in the shadows and watched as the old man prepared supper, listening to the tragic love story of Mimi and Rodolfo in La Boheme, tears rolling down his face.
The young man was fascinated. How could music make you cry? He could never remember having seen anyone cry. Not even his mother cried when she witnessed his destroyed face.
* * *
Have you gone mad?" said his mother jokingly. "Wouldn't we look the proper fools sitting here covered in soap, you with your plastic razor trying to shave a couple of my hairy moles!"
"But it's the only way I'll prove myself to the barber. I know I can be the best."
She laughed out loud, stopping suddenly, seeing the hurt on his face. "I suppose it would do no harm," she said, relenting.
He warmed the towel at the fire.
"Must do it right."
"Watch you don't burn it," she almost said, before holding her tongue. She had upset him enough today.
"And how are you today, Mr McCarthy?" asked Gary, taking on the role of the old barber.
The mother was laughing, now. "Don't be expecting a tip from me, young man, unless you do a good job," she said, her voice hamming a masculine throaty gruff.
"Oh, no sir! You will never forget this shave. Like a baby's bum."
"Gary! Now watch your language," said his mother's muffled voice from beneath the hot towel.
Gary, watch your language, mimicked a snide voice somewhere on the oil rig. Gary, pick up all that horse shit, rub it in those scars of yours. That'll take them all away, all on a summer day.
The hedgehog's voice was laughing now, blending seamlessly with his mother's. He felt his fingers tighten on the towel and something bubbling in the hollow of his stomach.
"Gary! You almost suffocated me! Enough of this nonsense!"
"No! Please, mother. I'm just nervous, that's all. I want to get it just right. Please…"
She shook her head then sat back in the chair as Gary applied the shaving brush, gently but firmly to her face.
"What's that music you're playing?" she asked, the soap tickling her nose. She felt a sneeze coming on.
"Opera. La Boheme. It tells the tragic love story of a poor poet, Rodolfo, who falls in love with Mimi, a seamstress."
"I didn't know you knew opera, son?"
He smiled: There are a lot of things you don't know about me.
He found his mother's skin not unlike the naked chicken he practiced on. It was withered, beyond care and he wondered if the consumptive-ridden Mimi's skin was as horrible.
Her skin may be withered, sneered the voice in his head, but at least it isn't scarred.
He watched as his mother's eyelids became heavy, listening to the softness and adagio of the music.
Why should I have all the scars, he thought, as oil moved faster and faster, pumping in his brain.
It was strange and powerful how a tiny nick could create such a forceful release of fluid. Her clothes would be ruined, but it was a small price for freedom.
She hadn't even stirred, lost somewhere in the music of dreams and failed hopes.
He made another nick - a fraction wider - to the left of the original.
She moaned, but he held her hand tightly, giving her strength, the strength he had needed all the years of his isolation.
Somewhere outside, nightlights came on, accentuating the darkness in the room. La Boheme came to a crackling end leaving only his soft breathing in the room.
He looked back at her, before closing the door, thinking how she resembled one of his models: stiff yet life-like. He tried to think which model, but the tiny hedgehogs had returned, biting at his brain.
It was only later in bed - as he closed his eyes, squeezing in the night and feeling his lids flicker as if housing angry ants - did he agree with himself to tell the old barber that the time had now come. He was a real barber now…
* * *
(c) 2004 Sam Millar - Albedo One. All rights reserved
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