The Inner Gyre, a Horror fanfic

The afternoon is just turning over into evening: the perfect moment when the sun is slanted a deep gold, and the air is crisp rather than cold. And maybe it’s just me, but in autumn, I always find a smoky scent to the air, like I’ll turn a corner and find a bonfire. Maybe it’s the smell of drying leaves. Moisture leeching into the air and whatnot. I think about these things, see, when I’m waiting for a bus that’s determined not to come.

My name’s Max, last name withheld to protect the innocent. I’m not a college drop-out; I’m just on a semester hiatus due to life opportunities. That’s my new, PC slang for “personal issues.” Say “issues” and everyone thinks neuroses or even psychoses, or drug abuse or members of the family up and dying. “Life opportunities,” on the other hand, has a singular connotation: there are issues, obviously, but they can’t be serious or you wouldn’t be calling them something as out’n’out stupid as “life opportunities.”

And I’m not a serious kind of guy; ask anyone. Anyone who knows me, that is. That’ll be the first thing they’ll tell you. The second is that I’m so straight I could claim edge, if I wanted to be a self-righteous asshole about my life choices. And they’ll say I’m like that because I can hack the party scene without the help most people need. But between you and me, we’ll lay it out honest: I’m straight because the last thing I need is something coming between me and reality.

Which is why I’m hoping the bus doesn’t make it, and I’m saved from my own stupid self. But my cousin’s town’s gone and fallen into a black hole, and I played more than a bit part in the Winter of ’96, so I’ve got to help drag it out.

Have a flashback: it’s the summer ’92, and little Maxy is 12 years old. He’s staying at his cousin’s place ‘cause his mom, good old “Call me Linda in front of our guests, Max, there’s a darling” mom, is on her year-long honeymoon with Husband #4. Husband #4 has brought four year-old twins Nicholas and Aaron into our fucked-up fold, and they’re at Cousin Chas’s place, too. Chas, short for Chastity: proud Puritan name. Chas is two months older than me and in charge of us all.

And aren’t we a group: there’s me and the twins for three, cousins Johnny and Davey for five, and baby Mark for six. Then neighbor kid Rob starts hanging around, and school chums Brenda and Tom. Tom’s baby brother Adam is brought along to hang with Mark, and that makes ten, all technically Chas’ responsibility, because it’s her dad’s place.

See, Chas’ dad doesn’t do much but work, and he has the money to show for it. His place is big enough to fit us all fairly easily, and we can spill out into the yard everyday and play out in the woods. Nearest town is a ten minute walk, and it’s one of those cozy, old-fashioned places people call “quaint” without a sense of irony. Johnny and Davey’s parents took care of her growing up, so Chas’ dad is supposed to be paying the favor back now. Sadly for Chas, she’s the one paying back the favor, ‘cause her daddy won’t stop working long enough to notice his kid is arranging her own dentist appointments and hiring new staff to clean the house.

I don’t know if Chas’ mom is a victim of death or divorce; either way, she doesn’t exist to our family. Baby Mark is Aunt Julie’s kid, and Aunt Julie’s in the hospital for six more years yet, until she stops talking to people who aren’t there.

So. That’s how the summer starts out: Chas puts me and Johnny and Davey in the first floor green room, ‘cause Davey’s nine and Johnny’s eleven and that’s nice and close. Johnny and Davey share the bed and I get the sofa, but them’s the breaks. The twins and Baby Mark, four and two respectively, are in the second floor rose room, across the hall from Chas’ ship-shape nautical space. Chas’ dad’s room is on the first floor, and kept pretty nice and neat; I still don’t know if the man sleeps.

But that summer, if Chas’ daddy is sleeping it’s at the office, because we see him maybe one day out of a week. He doesn’t know when Rob moves into the game room or Brenda and Tom start spending five days out of seven at his place.

But let’s start the story at the beginning, when Little Maxy went to stay at Still Creek.

Little Maxy gets into the car between two car seats, because Aaron and Nicholas are midgets. Noisy midgets. They shout in twin-speak the whole way to Chas’ daddy’s place, which sounds a lot like baby gibberish, but you can’t shove a pacifier in their mouths anymore. Linda and Husband #4 (“Call him Greg, Max, honey”) are in the front, cooing to each other and turning up the radio to drown the twins out.

Little Maxy gets in trouble for hitting the twins with a pillow. It doesn’t matter that it was soft.

Cousin Chas is waiting in the driveway. Linda introduces her to Aaron, Nicholas, and Husband #4 while Little Maxy is stuck carrying all the luggage to the house. As soon as Linda and Husband #4 clear out, before Little Maxy gets so much as a “bye,” Cousin Chas takes Aaron and Nicholas to the game room and sets them up in a playpen with Baby Mark. Little Maxy shouts for Johnny and Davey to help with the luggage, but Johnny and Davey are nowhere to be found.

Poor Little Maxy.

Cousin Chas shows up to help Little Maxy with the luggage, and Little Maxy, who is always sweet and considerate, asks, “Shouldn’t you watch the babies?”

Cousin Chas says, “Rob is doing it.”

Rob turns out to be the thirteen year-old boy who technically lives next door. I say technically because he’s half-moved in at this point. Little Maxy is annoyed because Rob is taller than most trees and Little Maxy is often thought to be Davey’s age. But Rob is nice, as evinced by his watching the babies while Chas helps Little Maxy move into the green room.

Chas says, “Pizza tonight.”

Little Maxy says, “I like this place.”

Rob says, “Can I stay for dinner?”

Chas says, “Do I ever say no?”

Little Maxy says, “Is there going to be enough pizza for all of us?”

There is enough pizza. Johnny and Davey troop in from the woods and the babies are fed appropriately for their age, according to Chas’ wisdom. Johnny and Davey have met the neighbor on the other side of the house, and popular opinion is that he’s creepy.

Davey, who still believes in monsters and fairies and all sorts of stupid kid crap, is of the opinion that neighbor is evil. Johnny, who humors Davey rather than beat some sense into him, agrees, but Little Maxy isn’t sure if he’s agreeing because he can never stand up to Davey or because neighbor is actually evil.

Chas doesn’t like neighbor because he has ugly teeth. Rob has yet to see neighbor. Little Maxy wants to make up his own mind on whether neighbor is evil or just creepy, and vows to drag Rob out into the woods tomorrow as a backup when he goes to find out.

There is just enough pizza for dinner. There will be no cold pizza for tomorrow’s breakfast. Little Maxy is disappointed.

Sometimes I think seeking out Peter Brandle was the bit where we all stuck our necks in the noose. Peter Brandle lived in the big house on the other side of Still Creek, which is what Chas’ dad called his place, because of the tiny creek in the back of the property. Rob’s parents’ place was called Cherrywood, because they had a little cherry orchard around the side.

Peter Brandle’s place didn’t have a name, but we took to calling it the Castle. Maybe because of the rounded towers on either side at the front. It needed painting, and some of the windows were actually hanging off the hinges, but we figured it was because Peter Brandle didn’t actually live in the Castle; he haunted the two towers up top.

Little Maxy goes out to find Peter Brandle the second day he stays at Still Creek, and he drags neighbor kid Rob with him. Neighbor kid Rob leads the way, in reality, but Little Maxy still feels that he’s the leader of the expedition, until they see the first irrefutable proof of Peter Brandle’s monstrous nature.

There’s a shed in the back of the Castle, to the south. Little Maxy and neighbor kid Rob approach it from the south and skulk through the bushes and dead branches around the west side, the side closer to Still Creek. They keep as quiet as they can, because the sight of the Castle gives them pause, and they stick close enough to each other to hear each other’s heartbeats jump when the rabbit squeals.

Peeking around the corner of the shed, and there’s Peter Brandle, standing at the edge of an overgrown garden. His back is to Little Maxy and neighbor kid Rob, but they can see between his shoulder-width-apart legs that a wild rabbit is caught in a snare in Peter Brandle’s garden. The rabbit is fighting the wire, pinkish foam around its mouth. It kicks for a bit while all humans watch, and then it’s still.

Neighbor kid Rob grabs Little Maxy’s wrist, trying to tug him away, but Little Maxy sees that Peter Brandle is moving. Peter Brandle bends and starts to pull the rabbit from the snare—no, he tears it from the snare, leaving bits of the rabbit behind. He takes the rabbit’s body to the big, dying tree by the house and jams it onto a nail, a big rusty knife-like thing, that’s poking out from the tree. And he leaves it there, and he walks into the house.

Little Maxy and neighbor kid Rob are frozen. After a minute, a big crow hops down to the windowsill of the house, the one nearest the rabbit, and begins to eat.

Little Maxy and neighbor kid Rob sneak away.

Let me tell you something about Peter Brandle’s house: in spring and summer, it looked like autumn there, all dead and dying trees, yellow bushes. Not a thing green, unless you were looking at mold. The grass was always brown. We marked it once, the big circular boundary of the Castle. A line of plants suddenly sick and brown and dying or dead, all the way ‘round.

In the spring and summer, it looked like autumn, but a bad autumn, one where the farmers were quaking in their boots ‘cause there was nothing to harvest. In autumn, it looked like winter: no leaves, not even brown, and skeletal branches skittering on the roof. In winter, when everything else was skeletal and skittering, Peter Brandle’s yard started to grow shadows on the wrong sides.

You might think it was psychological projection. I say, fuck that noise. It was real enough to us, which ought to make it real enough for you.

tbc