Blue Ooze
Brother was crawling. He was confused, but he needed to keep going. The idea of stopping made panic crawl over his skin. The tunnel was getting tighter, and the ceiling looked slick as it pressed in on him. He glanced around and found he was alone. He felt like he wasn’t, but he couldn’t see anyone. He kept crawling. Whatever was coating the ceiling was getting closer, growing like stalactites. At their points, Brother could see the stalactites were formed from a viscous, blue ooze. The floor was dry, which was good because Brother didn’t want to touch the blue ooze. The idea of touching it repulsed him, made him nauseous, so he dropped to his stomach and crawled on. The panic coalesced on his forearms, and he scratched at it. He felt something smush under his fingernails and looked down. There was an ant where he had scratched. Suddenly, there were hundreds. They crawled from under him and covered his arms. Brother choked back vomit. He was almost there. He crawled faster and squinted ahead. There was a blurry shape ahead, he knew he was almost there. The ants were up to his shoulders, and he pushed to his knees. The top of his head brushed against a stalactite. He slammed his face into the ground and crawled on. He felt the ants on his back. They were covered in the ooze now, leaving trails across his skin. He got back to his knees and crawled as fast as he could, pushing through the stalactites. He wasn’t close enough. The ooze was thick in his hair and dripping over his forehead. The churning in his stomach erupted and blue bile covered the ants on his arms. He felt a drop of the ooze trickle down the bridge of his nose. He went to wipe it, but the vomit had hardened into a cocoon around his hands. The drop slid toward the corner of his eye. He held his breath and shut his eyes. He was outside his body. He wanted to scream but couldn’t. His face was screwed shut. Tears fell as the drop of ooze reached the pink corner of his eye. His eyes shot open, the whites bright blue. The ooze filled the entire tunnel.
Brother woke and wiped a tear from his cheek. The car had stopped. “You hear that?” Mom undid her seat belt and turned to look at the kids in the backseat. She paused a moment, “Silence,” she whispered. The moment stretched out its arms and legs with the passengers of the car as they stood and took in the scenery of their new home for the first time together. The dusk was picturesque over the lake, the sunset dripping its oranges and pinks and reds like splatter paint across the surface of the water.
In the morning when Brother woke, he found Mom in the kitchen, sipping tea. She had big circles under her eyes, and steam rose around her face. Throughout the night, he had heard the creaks of movement and the quiet muttering of conversation through the walls as Mom and Momma had unpacked. Brother went to the fridge and found nothing he wanted. He turned around and looked at Mom, but she didn’t look up. He grabbed a granola bar and went out to the front porch.
Outside, the air was warm and sticky. He inspected one of the chairs on the porch carefully before he sat down. It was stained, faded, and mildewed. Brother knew the house had been empty for many years, the chairs its aging guardians. He sat. The morning mist was surprisingly thick, hanging from the limbs of the trees like dusty cobwebs and coloring the sun and sky a jaundiced yellow. He shifted uncomfortably in the seat. He could feel each of his pores opening in the humidity and the moisture in the air reaching into them. He went back inside.
Sister coughed and spluttered. She splashed her arms around in the water, her head bobbing in and out of sight. Panic welled in Brother’s chest. Sister wasn’t much farther out than him, but maybe there was a steep drop. This was his first time in the lake. Sister had been swimming many times, but Brother hadn’t. The feeling of something foreign and slimy reaching for him had persisted since that first morning. Now, Sister was thrashing and gasping. “Something’s grabbing me!” Brother raced to her, grabbed her arms, and pulled her out of the water. She started laughing. Brother paused for a moment. He looked down at the water lapping around his knees, then at Sister, now laughing hysterically.
He chuckled as he tossed Sister. She splashed with another burst of laughter.
“Hey! You two!” Brother turned and saw Momma on the shore. “Come meet Handyman, he’s going to be getting everything up and running, so he’ll be around a bit.” A splash hit Brother full on the side of the face as Sister raced past him, back to shore.
“I can’t believe this broke already,” Brother heard Mom say as he came into the kitchen. She was standing by the dishwasher.
“That, and the upstairs bathroom sink. I think something is blocking it up,” Momma responded.
“Hmmm,” Mom sighed, “We should call Handyman again. We can invite him to dinner to say thank you for doing so much. I can’t believe this, after the stove and the shower too.”
“So, I know we told you about the dishwasher and the sink, but just a couple days ago the AC went out as well,” Mom said.
“You should have called, would have come out right away. Don’t want you boiling to death.” Handyman said gruffly.
“I know, I know. But we didn’t want to bother you, you’ve been so helpful already. Anyway, let us know if you need anything,” Mom responded.
“Just a glass of water.” Handyman knelt in front of the crawl space.
“Brother!” Mom shouted, “Bring Handyman a glass of water. With ice!”
Brother brought the glass but didn’t see Handyman. “Thanks.” Handyman came around a corner, behind Brother, startling him. He handed the glass over. Handyman continued, “You haven’t gone in there recently, have you? Or messed around with that panel over there?” Brother shook his head. “Some screws fell out.” Handyman shrugged. “I’ll fix it up.” He set the glass down without taking a sip.
“Where is Sister?” Momma wondered aloud. The rest of them, Mom, Brother, and Handyman sat around the table. “Sister!” she called, “Come on! Dinner time!” Sister sprinted down the stairs and pulled a large kitchen knife from behind her back. She stabbed Handyman. The knife pierced just under his shoulder in the back of his arm. Blood welled up around the blade. Handyman swore loudly. Sister tried to pull the blade from his arm, but he turned and smacked her with the back of his hand. Momma yelled. Sister screamed. The sound was like a nail being driven through Brother’s eardrums. Handyman fell back over the table, scrambling away from Sister. The knife caught between his arm and the table, and wrenched out, fileting further down his arm. Blood splattered over the empty plates and the serving dishes. A single drop landed in a glass and Brother watched as it turned into a scarlet cloud within the glass. Handyman roared in pain and crashed into Mom, who was sitting, her mouth agape. When Handyman stood, Brother saw the exposed muscle of his triceps with brown lentils mashed in the wound. His stomach twisted. Sister leapt onto the table and grabbed the knife. She was about to lunge toward Handyman again when Brother dove forward, tackling her to the floor. He felt the knife nick his side as it fell from her hand. Mom ran over and handed him some kitchen twine. He took it and tied Sister’s hands together.
“Take her up to her room,” Mom said, “and lock her in there.” Brother picked up Sister, kicking and screaming and trying to bite him, put her down on her bed, and tied her hands to the frame. He stood for a moment, wanting to say something. He felt a bludgeoning pain in the back of his skull and his vision went white.
He came to a blurry consciousness. He went to rub his eyes but couldn’t. He tried again, and realized his hands were bound. He blinked several times. Handyman was lying in front of him. He realized he, too, was lying on the ground, and inched closer to Handyman. Brother felt a warm liquid under him. Squinting, he saw Handyman’s face, eyes glazed over, mouth and brow taut, and throat slashed open, blood dripping over the knife Sister had used. Brother vomited, the bile mixing with the dead man’s blood to form a heinous, chunky cocktail. He rolled over and saw Sister, tied to the bed and foaming at the mouth, groaning, and thrashing against the rope that held her. She spat at him, a vile blue saliva that hit Brother’s chest. She spat again. The thick glob hit his cheek. Brother screwed his eyes shut and pressed his lips together. Sister kept spitting between moans and laughs. He felt the saliva sliding down his face toward his mouth and eyes but couldn’t free his hands to wipe it. He scraped his face against the floorboards, but the edges of the wooden planks only cut him and left lines of splinters in his cheek. He tried to get up, but his ankles were bound as well, and he landed, face first, in the pool of vomit and blood. Tears fell from Brother’s eyes as he inched toward the body of Handyman, leaving streaks through the bile, blood, spit, and splinters. Brother wiped his face on Handyman’s clothes, but the mixture only smeared, and the splinters pulled at his skin.
Brother opened his eyes and saw the house as it was the first day, but almost as if it were faded. No, he was the one who appeared faded. Sister ran past him in her bathing suit as he came inside. Mom was bringing her tea upstairs and Momma was unpacking in their room. Sister splashed deeper and deeper. Momma took a sip of Mom’s tea. At the bottom of the mug there was a thick ooze. Brother could see it through the mug. A bit of it floated through the tea into the small sip Mom took. Sister swam beneath the surface, and Brother could see the same ooze just ahead of her. It reached up like seaweed from the lake floor into her nostril. He saw Sister watch through the window of her room as Handyman left the first time, then race to the shower, unscrew the head, and squeeze glue into it. He saw Handyman come and go three more times and Sister break everything he fixed. Then he saw Sister attacking Handyman and himself carrying her to her room. He saw Mom grab a pan and follow him up the stairs. He saw himself fall and he saw Momma go to Handyman, as if to check on him, but she grabbed the knife and cut his throat. Brother saw her drag him up the stairs by the heels, leaving a trail of blood and lentils, and drop the body and knife next to Brother’s own. Brother saw his own face covered in scratches and splinters, in his blood and Handyman’s blood, and in vomit and blue spit. He saw that spit trickle into a cut, then more into his mouth, and then one drop, down the bridge of his nose, and into the pink corner of his eye.
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