The Hole

Gary J. Beharry

    There's a hole. In this hole lives a creature. That's what Joshua says, anyway. They didn't believe Joshua when he said he saw the creature kill his father, nor did they believe Joshua when he said the creature tried to kill him, using its sinuous body to circle Joshua, gently wrapping itself around his legs, rubbing its scaly and stubby arms against his body.

     So Joshua knew he was alone, knew he must go after the creature. Thus he sat by the hole, day and night, with a bucket to relieve himself in, t.p. to clean up, chips, cupcakes, soda, and his father's gun. 

     Joshua gripped the gun tighter against his chest. His belly grumbled, so he ripped open a bag of Fritos and dug in. He tried to hide his crunches by keeping his mouth closed while he chewed, and when he chugged the flat Coke, he suppressed his liquidy burp.

     The caffeine filtered through his system and he began knocking his knees together. The distant sound of a car engine managed to filter through the overgrown buxus hedges and dense trees separating the run-down house from the dirt road.

     Joshua sighed. He missed Dad. Dad treated Joshua well, despite Joshua's different ways. Joshua was kept home mostly, because he was different.

     But his father loved him anyway. Until that night. Until . . .

     Joshua didn't understand why Dad got mad. Joshua had found a chest in Dad's room. It had such neat stuff in it. There were shiny, thin, books with strong men. Their muscles rippled. Some were even naked. Joshua smiled when he saw them.

     He spent a long time rifling through the thin and shiny books. He felt funny though. Hot and funny. Then . . . a shadow loomed larger in front of Joshua. The shadow rippled with rage and embarrassment. Then there was a scream, Joshua's scream, followed by pain, Joshua's pain. Joshua cried and covered his face. But his father wasn't done. Dad took off his belt, and then slapped Joshua again and again, all over his body. Joshua cried, whimpered, and begged his father to stop. He called for help, but they lived on several acres. No telephone.

     No one heard the cries of a simple young man losing his innocence.

     And it was later that very night when the creature came and took his father away. Joshua tried to tell the people that came looking for his father what had happened. He even showed them the hole, but they just looked at Joshua the way his father looked at him when he did something . . . different.

     They found the magazines and told Joshua maybe Dad was scared Joshua would tell, and that's why Dad had left. They told Joshua that they would send someone to come for him, to take care of him. And then they left.

     But no one came.

     Joshua sighed and relieved himself in the pot, and thinking about how he was alone now, how this creature had taken everything from him, he dumped the bucket full of his piss and shit down the hole. Still, the creature didn't come.

     Joshua yawned and stretched his hands in the air. He swallowed the remnants of the Coke and licked the food wrapper clean.

     It was a full moon tonight. Joshua saw that big world clear as day. He smiled at the man who smiled back at him from above.

     Joshua's eyes closed, opened, and closed again. The gun fell at his side.

#

     Footsteps padded on the weed-ridden path leading to Joshua's house. The stranger stopped upon spotting Joshua, but continued when Joshua didn't move for at least two minutes.

The man wore a dark mask, and the mask would have scared Joshua if he were awake.

     The man saw the gun sitting beside Joshua and crept towards it. He ignored the hole, the hole that everyone else ignored, the hole that Joshua used to dig when he was a child, just to dig, the hole that housed the creature that came when Joshua was in trouble, the creature that now slowly slithered out as it sensed the need of its Creator and Master.

     The man did not see the creature as the beast opened its mouth and pierced through the man's mask with its black fangs. It wrapped itself around the man's body and opened its head until it could swallow man, mask and gun. As it digested the man it wrapped itself around Joshua's body, keeping Master warm until morning, when it crawled back down to its home.