Graham

1.

Graham opened the car door and stepped out, shifting his weight to adjust his straddled wind-breaker. He was thirty three minutes late; the meal was free.

There was something about this gray house that reminded him of life. It’s not black and white, but somewhere in-between, like the shade of a shadow dancing carelessly across the pavement. Graham often felt like he was that shadow: Somewhere in-between.

He knocked softly against the mahogany door, and tapped his foot while cradling a cigarette from his lips. After two minutes without a response, he tilted his head and glanced into the window. There was a small upsurge of light that moved about the living room, then died as it expanded outward towards the kitchen. A fire burned tamely in a makeshift stove aside a wooly sofa.

It seems normal enough, so where is everyone? The voice in his head was squeaky, almost an octave higher than his own.

A sudden rustle from the depths of the hallway brought Graham back to himself, and he corrected his posture as footsteps grew louder.

2.

The door opened with an anticlimactic snore, and a tall, middle-aged man gripped the other end of the knob tightly. “Hi son, what do you need?”

“You, um… You ordered a pizza sir?” Graham questioned, grabbing the box of “Leonardo’s Best: Feels like Italy” from the plastic covering.

“Why, yes, as a matter-of-fact I did. But that was around Forty minutes ago.” The man’s voice was friendly, lacking even a hint of impatience.

“Yes, sorry about that. I, uh, I got lost, and now your order’s free.”

“Oh? Well that’s not necessary. I’ll pay you just for the effort.”

“No, that’s ok,” Graham replied, handing the man the Pepperoni Pizza, “It’s the policy.”

“Ok.” The man paused, moving his fingertips across the short stubble of his beard. “How about you come in for a drink? I could use the company, and it looks like you could use a scotch.”

“I don’t know…”

“It’s the least I can do.”

“Alright.” Graham finally replied.

The man stepped away, and Graham placed his foot into the doorstep.

“Wait! No shoes. Sorry, it’s the rules.” The man said, turning back.

He untied his boots, and placed them on the corner of the doormat.

3.

Once inside, Graham was finally able to get a good look at the man. His face was featureless and like putty: Empty and hollow, except for a few lines of contour and two scars running from the base of his chin to either temple.

“Name’s Peter,” the man said, extending his hand outward, “And you are?”

“Graham.”

They shook hands, and for a moment, they froze in each other’s grip. Graham met Peter’s gaze. Despite his warm voice, Peter’s eyes were a dead, icy blue. He seems oddly vacant. The mouse-like voice in Graham’s head whispered.

The awkward air was stirred by the gentle crackle of the fire. “Oops, sorry son, my brain blocked me out for a second there,” Peter said hurriedly, going to the kitchen counter and shuffling through the cabinets for alcohol. Graham checked to his left, and there, by the wooly sofa, stood a mini-bar. He took a step back; something was strange about Peter, like he didn’t know where the things in his own house were.

4.

“…I guess we’re all out of booze.” Peter said, smiling and raising his shoulders.

“Oh,” Graham winded from his mouth.

“But the company would be appreciated.”

“I’ll stay for a couple of minutes, but I have to get back to the store soon.”

“That’s fine.”

A pause reverberated. Then:

“So where do you go to school? You do attend college, right?”

“Well,” Graham prepared his speech in the way that he does for all adults who ask him this, “I am kind of winging it right now. I’m twenty-two, but I just don’t feel like I’m ready for college yet.”

The room went quiet again, and both men stood in silence.

5.

Pictures littered the walls, and yet no family was in sight. This seemed odd to Graham, as he expressed, “So, where’s your kids, in bed?”

“You could say that,” Peter answered. His hand stirred from under the kitchen counter, and he seemed somewhat agitated.

“What’s that supposed to-”

Graham’s shoulder exploded, littering the floor with small bone fragments. Peter held the smoking gun, which hissed malevolently from its barrel.

“Ugh! OH MY GOD!” Graham screamed, running blindly for where he thought the door had been. In his state of hysteria, however, he had instead darted down the hallway and into a room.

Peter moved slowly and with precision as new, fresh screams erupted from the far bedroom on the left. They were not screams of pain, but that of fear.

6.

What Graham had stumbled upon was not the exit, or merely an empty space, but the face-down bodies of two children, one woman, and a man. Each shared identical head wounds.

“Graham,” Peter said, looming over the corpses, “Let me introduce you to the family.”

“Why?! Why God why?!”

“I’m sorry about this son, I truly am. But I have an itch that needs to be scratched.”

The gun wailed, contrasting the tranquil neighborhood, and Graham’s yell was accentuated in the echo.

Peter dragged the bodies, one by one, into Graham’s company car, and drove off towards the river.

I gotta dump these stiffs somewhere, before anyone calls in on the gunshot. And it was loud, waking up half of the neighborhood in a panic of disarray and worry.

7.

He stopped at an old bay, slowly moving from the front seat to the rear, pulling out the five people. Thank God for the trunk space on these foreign models, He thought, gripping the mother’s corpse.

8.

They were hard to toss over the edge, but each one sunk softly when it touched the water. He pushed Graham’s body in last, and it seemed to wave back as it disappeared into the abyss. “Goodbye, son.” Peter said dimly.

9.

He went to light a cigarette as he started the ignition to the sedan, but stopped, and stared intuitively. “You know,” he said, flicking it out the window, “smoking kills.”

He drove off, the car vanishing within the dusk. Somewhere, a police siren cries to the darkness.