Eraser Chapter 4: Dead and Buried

My grandmother's only purpose in life was to make me miserable.

On my sixth birthday she gave me a bible and then called me stupid when I couldn't read it to her.

On my tenth birthday she got me a movie all about Satan, and called me a heretic when I didn't know who that was.

She said I was probably born a mongloid when I asked what "heretic" meant.

By my fourteenth birthday she just sent me pamphlets in the mail to warn me of the dangers of masturbating.

She always addressed me as "Alex", and every time she's ever seen me she's said, "So, you still look like your father."

And even though she's dead, I still want to punch in her stupid, pudgy, old face.

"An open casket was a bad decision," Ezra says, squinting at her lifeless body. "She's fucking ugly."

"She looks exactly like she did when she was alive," I'm so mad there's no emotion in my voice. I've spent the last twenty minutes remembering her, and remembering everything bad that's ever happened in my life. "Only more bloated."

I wonder how many people would care if I punched her. Just one good punch, because I know she's still mocking me from the grave.

In Hell she's telling Satan about my used nazi coat and how I didn't know who he was when I was small. In Hell she says Ezra's a fake albino and Hayden's a gay and I'm the result of a broken condom. In Hell, Gram-Gram thrives.

Just one good punch, and maybe the surpressed anger caught somewhere in my throat will just go away.

"I think her eyes are missing," Ezra gets closer to the coffin. He's never seen a dead body before, and has all the enthusiasm of a kid who's just discovered porn. "Holy fuck, they took her eyes!"

"No one took her eyes," I mutter.

"Don't say that," Hayden hisses from behind. He's been very quiet ever since my grandmother choked. He blames himself and Ezra doesn't help, bringing up how he killed her whenever he can.

"Have you seen that movie where the guy gets eye implants and then he starts going crazy and jumps off a building and all that's left is small human bits, like spaghetti, like, enough to fit in your hand?" Ezra's getting too excited. Relatives are looking, wondering who the albino kid is, probably wondering who the hell I am.

Everyone knows who Hayden is, because he killed his grandmother.

"No," I say. "What's your point?"

"Someone's going to get Gram-Gram's nasty old eyes and that's gonna happen to them," He says, matter-of-factly. "I hope you don't suddenly go blind Hayden. They'd never tell you if they replaced your eyes with Gram-Gram's."

"Don't say that!" Hayden sounds desperate now. Ezra glowers.

"Don't talk to me."

"But-" Hayden starts.

"Jamacain me crazy!" Ezra screeches, so everyone in the church can hear.

More Catholic glares. Sarah, my mother gives me that pleading look she reserves for special occasions like this, and I glare at her. She's the only reason I'm here. She's the only reason I've ever done anything for this woman, and she can't even be grateful for that.

I wonder how many people would care if I punched her.

"Shut up," I tell Ezra, but he isn't paying attention.

"I wonder what else they took from her," He muses. "Gram-Gram was too mean to be an organ donor. I wonder if the coroner fucked her. What if he's a necro?"

He starts ranting and I stop listening. In Ezra's world everything relates back to movies I've never seen and probably don't exist. I just stare at his face and notice how pale his eyebrows are. If I wasn't looking for them, they'd probably just blend in with his skin. He moves them so much when he's talking, like they make a difference, like they convey what he's saying but I'm sure no one ever notices them.

They're so pale and so thin…

"Jesus, you have small eyebrows," I say it before I can even think.

"What?" He stares.

"Nothing, let's sit down."

"Okay," He sounds more reluncatant than he has any right to be.

Sarah is sitting in the front row, looking sadder than normal, and I sit next to her. I really don't want to, though. She smells too strongly of perfume and she keeps giving me these looks, like I can make everything better.

Hayden sits down and I think he wants to switch spots with me. He's between Ezra and our great-aunt Wilma.

And now he's giving me desperate, pleading looks, and I'll be damned if I'm sitting next to Wilma.

She always smells like someone spilt a bottle of vodka over her, and she has the worse smokers cough I've ever heard.

Rasp, rasp, hack, hack, in between words. And she doesn't cover her mouth. She just keeps on trying to talk, while she's gagging on her own saliva.

It makes me cringe just thinking about it.

Ezra nudges me in my ribs suddenly, and I immediately punch his arm.

He glowers, rubbing his arm.

"You see how abusive he is?" He tells Pikachu, who is snuggled in his pocket. "Sometimes he hits me in front of the children."

"Shut up," Is all I can think to say, while he smirks.

"Do you want to know what I nudged you for?" He asks.

"No," I say.

"There's a guy with a camera."

"What guy?" I try to follow his line of vision the best I can, and notice someone with a polaroid camera. Right next to Gram-Gram's coffin.

Uncle Tom.

Not everyone knows this, but everyone has a crazy Uncle Tom.

Mine happens to take post-mortem pictures with his mother.

"Smile," I can hear him say to one of his happy kids, as they pose next to Gram-Gram.

"That didn't turn out very well," Tom scolds down at the newly developed photos. "We might have to prop her up on something."

"Oh my God," Ezra is all smiles.

"No," I tell him, before he can even stand up.

"I'm not doing anything!" He says, indignant. I grab on to the sleeve of his coat.

"You are not getting your picture taken with my dead grandmother," I tell him.

I can barely tell he's rolling his eyes through the sunglasses.

"I wasn't even thinking about that," He says.

"Good," I cross my arms and stare at a statue of Jesus. He looks like he could use a cracker.

"But, imagine how cool it would be if I did," Ezra is saying. "No one else in school could even touch that. I'd be like, a celebrity."

"No," I say, flatly. "You wouldn't."

"Maybe not," He shrugs. "But still. It would be cool."

"To be perfectly honest, I really wouldn't care, except I don't want you talking to Uncle Tom. He's really weird. When Gram-Gram told him Hayden was gay he tried to exercise the gay out of him." I shudder at the memory. "So just, don't make eye contact with him or anything."

"Too late," Ezra muttered.

"Jesus," Is all I say before Uncle Tom is staring at us with a huge, wolfish grin. Even though he's my mother's brother, he doesn't look anything like her. He looks like he lives in a suburb.

"What's with the sad patrol?" He says, in the sort of voice people talk to kids with.

"We're not sad," Hayden says. He still doesn't know enough to ignore Uncle Tom.

"You sure look sad to me!" Uncle Tom proclaims. One of his many, many offspring is clinging to his shirt. "Hayden, I just want you to know, I don't blame you for killing Mother. It was an accident. And I know you didn't choose the devil's path. You just gave into temptation."

"But I'm not-" Hayden begins. Uncle Tom doesn't pay attention.

"Well now, who are you little buddy?" He says with too much enthusiasm to Ezra.

Ezra examines him.

"I was there when Gram-Gram died," He says, in a weird voice that is definantly not his own.

Today is a day I wish I didn't exist.

"Oh," Uncle Tom seems lost for words. Like he's wondering whether to condole him, or ask for the gory details.

"You see, I'm an albino," He says, like that explains something. Uncle Tom stares. "That means I also have psychic abilities. I see ghosts and talk to dead people and…stuff like that. And right now, right now I sense her spirit. She wants to talk to you Tom."

I realize he's probably trying to sound like the creepy lady from Poltergeist.

"What?" Uncle Tom's eyes are big.

I really wish I didn't exist.

"Yes, I can hear her," He says, fingers delicately rubbing his temples. I glance around to make sure everyone else is too busy mourning to notice. "Was your fathers name Ted, Tom?"

"No, actually," Tom looks skeptical now. "His name was Ernie."

"Are you sure about that Tom?" Ezra closes his eyes, reaches out towards my terrified Uncle. "Your mother…she wants me to tell you something. She says that there used to be an attractive young mailman who came by the house every day…and one day he took her in his big, strong, Native American arms and they made sweet, sweet love. And she was in love Tom, in love with him! But the next week he got a new postal route and she was crushed. Crushed with the knowledge of what they had done! And nine months later she had a baby, Tom! A beautiful baby boy! And do you know who that love child was Tom? Do you?"

Ezra is standing up know, pointing accusingly at Uncle Tom. His voice gets more hysterical with each word, closer to a scream. Hayden's staring stupidly at the scene and I'm trying hard to blend in with the wooden bench.

"No!" Tom pulls at his cropped hair.

He really looks nothing like Sarah.

"You Tom! You are the result of your mothers adulterous affair with Theodore Rainbowsky!" Ezra shrieks, so everyone in the church can hear.

"It's not true, you bastard!" He cries.

I expect Uncle Tom to dropkick Ezra.

Instead he wanders back to his smiling wife and their eight, happy children, looking like he's about to start bawling at any minute.

Hayden's lips twitch into a smile.

Ezra is completely unconcerned.

"I'm gonna go piss," He tells me confidentially before leaving for the bathrooms.

I want to strangle him.

I'm wondering what I would tell his parents, if I did strangle him, when two of my small cousins come over to us. One is a short girl with blonde pig tails and the other is a taller boy with a nearly bald head.

"You have a funny friend," One of them says to me. I stare. Normally children are scared of me.

"Um," I say, caught off-guard.

"He made my daddy cry," The other, the girl, says.

"Okay," It's an automatic reply, reserved for school teachers and parents.

"My daddy says he's not really a psychic though," The boy says, casually. "He says he's a lying homo."

It's so mater of fact, that I wait for him to finish the word.

A homo what? Homophone? Homosapien? Homocentric?

It takes a while before it dawns on me that it was just that-homo.

I hate children.

"Go play in traffic, or something," I say, and I mean it.

The children stare up at me, innocent enough.

I'm about to tell them to fuck off when Hayden stands up. I had almost forgotten he was there.

"I am so sick of everyone talking about my sexuality!" He yells suddenly.

I blink. "But they weren't-"

"Don't try to protect me Axel!" His eyes are wild. It's unnerving.

"I'm not trying to-" I try to say.

"All these people are sick! They're just like her, trying to brainwash their spawn into being shallow minded douche bags like they are! Well dammit, you're all bastards!"

Hayden's been doing this too much lately.

He gives everyone near him one last glare before marching off.

"Great," I mutter. "I'm not getting him."

My mother is looking at me again.

"Stop it," I tell her.

I'm nearly grateful when Ezra comes back.

Nearly.

"You missed Hayden having another break down," I tell him. "And apparently Uncle Tom called you a homo, whatever that means."

I can tell that he's not listening. Just waiting until the mood is set and he can tell me about something magical that happened in the bathroom.

I don't want to know.

"Someone accused me of being a ghost!" He says, in one breath, so it's all one word.

"Really," I say, as monotone and uninterested as I can. I don't believe him.

"Really!" He cries. "I was just washing my hands, right? And this ancient guy walks into the bathroom, screams 'ghost' and runs out. What the hell?"

"That never happened," I say. "You look sort of anemic at best. No one would ever think you were a ghost. Bohemian vampire, maybe."

"It did too!" He looks appauled that I don't believe him. "It was like, one of your great uncles or something. He saw my pasty skin and hair and started screaming. And he hadn't even looked at my eyes yet! You know how my eyes can pierce through the soul."

I do not.

Sometimes I wonder if Ezra's ever looked in a mirror.

He doesn't look like a ghost. He doesn't even look like a proper albino. My mother's paler than he is. What kind of albino isn't the palest person in the room?

He scans the church full of people that are still taking morbid glances at Gram-Gram's corpse, waiting for the sermon to start.

"There he is!" He screams suddenly. I grind my teeth and don't bother looking. "That’s the guy who thought I was a ghost!"

A pause. I know people are shooting lasers into his head.

"Boo!" He says.

"We're leaving," I say and stand up. He blinks, confused.

"What? But the funeral hasn't even really started yet!" He's getting excited, and I start pulling on his wrist.

"This is getting ridiculous," I say, as we march down the aisle. "You're obnoxious as hell today, Hayden had another breakdown, Sarah keeps on looking at me, and everyone here is fucking insane." I stop at the doors. "Shit, we need Hayden."

"I think you dislocated my wrist," Ezra whines. I hate him more.

"Where the hell did he go?" I ask no one in particular.

"I think I saw him in the Sunday school room," Ezra says.

"Why?" I quirk an eyebrow.

"I don't know. Gay sex?"

I sigh and make Ezra take me to the Sunday school room.

The room looks small and cramped, even from the outside, with inspirational posters hung on every wall. I bet it smells like dried milk.

"The lights aren't even on," I note. "Was he actually in here?"

"Yeah," Ezra says. "Come on."

He opens the door, with more ease than I would have expected.

"Haaayden," Ezra calls. I turn on the light.

"Fuck," I say, because Hayden's in there and he's all over someone, in a kissing, touching sort of way. I want to puke.

"Is…is that a girl?" Ezra can't keep the shock from his voice.

"Really?" Neither can I.

"Yes!" Hayden says, pulling away from the girl who's eating his face. "I told you I wasn't gay."

"I'm still not convinced," Ezra says, and neither am I.

"We're leaving," I tell him, staring at a poster of a cat dressed like Jesus. "If you don't want to walk home, I would suggest coming with. Right now."

"Holy fuck, that's your cousin, isn't it?" Ezra is grinning in an unnerving way. "You sick freak!"

"It is not!" Hayden says. He sounds like he did when we were small, when I would accuse him of lying about everything. "Are you?"

The girl mutters something. I'm getting too sick to function.

"I'm leaving without you," I tell him.

"Wait," He calls and follows us out of the room. He's covered in lipstick, but I'm still not convinced.

"We should have a post-funeral meeting at IHOP," Ezra says, nonchalantly, like my brother hadn't just been tonguing someone we're probably related to. "This is an IHOP sort of day."

"No, it's not." I say. He pouts, but I don't care.

I make sure to spit on Gram-Gram's dead face before we leave.

Everyone already hates us anyway.

A/N: I had very important Eraser-related things to say, but I can not remember what they are. Finishing chapters always seems to drain me of all energy.

This was supposed to be up yesterday, seeing how I vowed to finish it before spring break was over, but that, of course didn't happen.

It's up now. Be happy, dammit.

This chapter is for my darling Fetus and Brett, who gave me fabulous ideas and pep talks when I needed them. I'd like to thank everyone who's reviewed, favorited, or alerted this story too XD You guys make me so happy, you have no idea. This would be a short story if it wasn't for you!

While I'm on the subject of fans (lol), I got a fanfic the other day in an email. I'm not really sure who it's from, but it's full of the gay sex everyone seems to want so desperately XD I'll post it on my (new) livejournal probably tomorrow, and you can read it and maybe claim it as your own. It'd be nice to have an author (and more fanfiction because it makes me giddy).

I also, have finally figured out the plot! o.o oh my! Hopefully there will be more consistent Eraser updates in the future (I'm working on it).

Remember to review kids! Loooove!