A Month of Sundays Read online

  The other legs – Curtis couldn’t count how many – stayed curled under its body as it moved toward Curtis’ head.

  Curtis tried to scream again but this time he cut his tongue on the end of the pipe and coughed up blood. The creature moved toward his face, stopping at each drop of spittle and consuming it. Then it began to move more quickly toward his open mouth.

  Another voice, a man’s voice, came from somewhere in the room but Curtis could not see him. Curtis was becoming more panicked as the creature made its way up his chest and began to grasp for his chin.

  “Professor, do you think he will bring them to us?” asked the voice.

  “John, I am certain of it,” said Tanár.

  BROWNSTONE CELLAR NOW

  Curtis banged on the door.

  “You have to let me out!” he screamed.

  The panel slid open so quickly that Curtis leapt backwards.

  “Sorry Curtis, you have to stay in here until your safe” said Beta Turner.

  “Listen to me. I know what they are now! I know what they did to me! They are going to kill others!” Curtis pleaded.

  “Yes. I imagine you do have a better understanding of the situation,” he paused “but I still can’t let you out,”

  “I don’t understand,” Curtis nearly sobbed. In a matter of hours he had learned that nothing he remembered about the past month was true. He had ‘supped’ with Tanner - or Tanár as he now knew him - numerous times but he had no idea how many times or even when. Actually, he couldn’t be certain of how many times he had been to the brownstone either.

  He had found the De Gaizas and been a participant in cannibalizing their missing child. He prayed that that part was a dream and not a memory fighting its way to the surface.

  He had been drugged and incarcerated. He couldn’t figure out that part either so he asked.

  “We thought you might have come in contact with them so we have been giving you small amounts of an antioxidant/antitoxin,” Turner Beta explained in response.

  “What do you mean you thought I might come in contact? You bastards knew about them?!” Curtis was raging with indignation. Then Curtis remembered the conversation between the Turners on the steps.

  “You mother-fuckers! I’ll kill you when I get out of here!” he pounded on the door and shouted more threats at the Turners, the Portas, Sonny and Jahn.

  “So you understand why I can’t let you out yet?” said Beta Turner.

  Curtis was stunned. Who were these people to play with other peoples lives? The hubris and callousness of it. Why had the De Gaizas been allowed to be...?

  “Are you wondering why yet?” asked Beta Turner through the door.

  Curtis slumped to the floor. He sat with his back against the door and looked up at the ceiling of his cell. He heard a shuffling noise in the corner. His boxers were moving toward him.

  “What is that thing they put in me?” Curtis asked.

  “It’s some sort of parasite or symbiotic...in truth we’re not all that certain about it,” said Beta Turner.

  “Well do you know how to kill it?” Curtis asked while he scanned the cell for something solid to hit it with.

  “Fire, salt, or ammonia,” said Beta Turner.

  “Well?” Curtis asked.

  A plastic cylinder struck Curtis in the head and dropped on the floor. It had the Morton’s Salt logo on it. Curtis grabbed the cylinder pulled the thin plastic lid off then crawled toward the moving undergarments.

  He jerked the boxers off of the creature and recoiled from the sight of it. It was now a foot long and curled like snake preparing to strike. The pronounced forelegs now terminated in a pair of pincers and the hook on the tail was blood red. The creature was no longer translucent. Its shell was gray with scales like chain-male. It hissed at Curtis and lifted its upper body using the multiple hind legs. It was three inches off of the ground at its head and the clawed forelegs added another three. It was a hideous iteration of a scorpion on steroids and was highly agitated since losing its host.

  Curtis vigorously doused the creature with the salt. At first it just stood immobile. Then it collapsed onto the floor frozen in place. The shell began to dissolve and it made a hissing noise like frying bacon. A viscous orange liquid began to ooze out of it. The hooked tail stabbed at random places on the floor so violently that it wrenched itself free from the liquefying body. Curtis used the remainder of the salt to make a ring around the carcass and moved back to his spot leaning against the door. Although he was certain it was dead he kept an eye on the white misshapen pile.

  “So why?” he asked.

  “I’ll have to ask for your patience. It relates to the story we were telling you last Sunday,” Beta Turner answered.

  “Well, I’m clearly not going anywhere,” said Curtis.

  “Excellent,” said the voice outside the cell.

  “Before you begin, where did Sonny go? She said she was coming right back,” Curtis asked.

  “The others are making ready to go after your neighbors,” Beta Turner explained.

  “You have to let me out then! They don’t know what they are facing!” shouted Curtis.

  “After I tell you the rest of the story I will let you decide if they are or not,” came the response.

  “Ok but hurry. I don’t want them to leave without me because you took the long way around,” said Curtis.

  “Fair enough. By the way they are negotiating for assistance as we speak so their departure will not be immediate,” said Beta Turner.

  “Assistance?! Who the fuck do you call for this?!” Curtis said louder than he intended.

  “Sonny has some strange connections,” was the enigmatic response. Then Turner Beta continued.

  “When Keeper, as Peter was known by then, began to really suspect what his brother was up to he went to the Professors mansion. And it was a mansion by then. Twelve bedrooms a grand dining hall it was immense and lavishly decorated according to all accounts. Keeper found all of the servants preparing for a ball or gala of some sort. Keeper found out from one of the servants that all of the regular furniture had been removed and replaced with dining furniture, tables, chairs and place settings, even the bedrooms had been converted into dining areas,”

  “So this was going to be the cannibal’s ball?” Curtis asked.

  “Cannibals are creatures that eat their own. Does anything you’ve seen lead you to believe that those things are human?” was the question from Beta Turner.

  Curtis thought in silence for a full minute.

  “Ghouls,” Curtis whispered.

  “Yes. At least that’s the colloquial term for them. We don’t have a great deal of scientific data but we have determined a few things. The PRP gene that we have is missing in them. They can’t make protein. Therefore, when they eat human flesh they do not run the risk of mutation, instead they stay healthy some even get healthier,” Beta Turner concluded.

  “So no Prions,” Curtis realized and said aloud.

  “Very good! It seems your short-term memory is still in tact. Chimpanzees are more than a ninety percent genetic match for humans. We believe that these things are even closer to human. Closer to one hundred percent but not quite,” Beta Turner finished.

  “But no matter how smart an animal or whatever the hell these things are, they all lack the capacity for abstract thought,” That would explain the lack of television and phone, Curtis thought. “and Sonny said this guy was a professor,” countered Curtis.

  “He claimed to be a professor. That thing that was inside you somehow makes humans susceptible to his suggestion. Not anyone’s, just his. We think it’s a combination of pheromones and…” Beta Turner tapered off.

  “And what?!” Curtis shouted dreading the answer.

  “…and whatever they put in your…uh…food that does it. That’s how we believe the Professor was able to gain so much support in such a short time and of course, it was the eighteen hundreds,” Beta Turner offered.

  “That night, K
eeper waited until the party was reaching its peak. He watched his brother deliver two cartloads of bodies to the back door of the mansion. His brother wasn’t allowed to attend of course, being black, and that fact has really been the key to where we are now. Keeper crept up the back steps armed with a sawed-off shotgun and a scythe. Accounts vary but he supposedly killed twenty-two of them before they brought him down,” Beta Turner continued.

  “The survivors lynched him in front of the mansion. While everyone was outside reveling, drunk on bloodlust more than alcohol several of Keepers tutors made their way into the mansion. They stole whatever notes and chemicals the Professor kept and then torched the house,” Beta Turner concluded.

  “The Professor?” Curtis asked.

  “No sign,” came the voice from the hall.

  “Ghoulish John?” Curtis asked with dread.

  “Vanished,” said Turner Beta.

  It was almost Shakespearian without the…well actually it was Shakespearian on a lot of levels, Curtis thought. The story even had some biblical elements

  “And you guys are trying to kill these things,” Curtis said.

  Turner Beta was silent. Then it dawned on Curtis what the brownstone was, it was a hunting lodge! The pictures weren’t Klansmen or slave owners they were all hunting parties. The weapons, the sparse ornamentation…then the anger set in.

  “And you ass-holes use your tenants as bait?” Curtis accused.

  “The tutors made a pact that from that night forward they would dedicate all of their resources to purging these abominations and of course avenging Keeper. We are the descendants of those women, and Keeper of course.” Beta Turner stopped to take a breath.

  “Over the next few decades rumors of a traveling professor and his valise popped up, usually near a plantation or out west where the Chinese were building the railroads, Ellis Island and the Jewish ghettos of New York. Our coterie just didn’t have a way to track or anticipate their movements. Granted every now and again one of us got lucky and happed upon a few and killed them but nothing to really ‘turn the tide’ as it were. Are you ready to come out?” Beta Turner asked.

  “I’m naked and filthy,” said Curtis as he stood for the first time in an hour. His body ached from the sitting on the cold floor but he focused on his rage.

  The door opened and Beta Turner tossed a key to Curtis. After he freed himself from the manacles Curtis stood just inside the doorway.

  Beta Turner took a step back and gestured to his right.

  “Down the hall there is a shower and a robe. Sonny has arranged some clothing for you. Join us upstairs when you’re ready. Time is of the essence,” Beta Turner said as he began to make his way in the opposite direction and toward the stairs.

  “Hey!” shouted Curtis standing naked in the hallway.

  Beta Turner turned to face him.

  “I understand who you descended from and why you do what you do, but in a word, who the fuck are you people?” Curtis asked with true sincerity.

  “We call ourselves Keeper’s Reapers. Now hurry up. God knows what this group has gotten up to while you’ve been down here bending my ear,” Beta Turner gave Curtis an ironic smile sprinted up the stairs.

  Of course, Curtis thought, KR Holdings, LLC.

  MIDNIGHT

  Curtis entered the Grand Salon wearing the provided workman’s coveralls. He felt ridiculous and his hair was still wet. He had used his time in the shower to think and now he was angry again.

  What if he hadn’t come over this evening? Would he have become some sort of mindless drone like Laboria and Mitts-for-Hands? Did he owe these people his life or was he justifiably angry that they deliberately put his life in danger for the sake of their vendetta? Was he being selfish and forgetting what had happened to the De Gaizas and God knew whom else?

  All of these questions occupied Curtis until he crossed the threshold of the Grand Salon. All of them were dressed like he was. The Turners were sharpening something in the corner. Sonny and Jahn were studying blueprints on one of the tables.

  Miguel and Sophie were on opposite ends of the space. Miguel appeared to be praying and Sophie was stuffing a duffle bag. Sonny was injecting herself with something.

  “I have some questions,” Curtis said.

  Sonny and Jahn looked up as if a child had interrupted the adult’s conversation.

  “Of course you do,” said Turner Alpha.

  “I told him what I could in the way I could. Why do you have to be such a…?” Beta Turner stopped and looked around sheepishly.

  “Ask my friend. We will be forthright.” Spoke Miguel. His face had taken on a serenity that perfectly supplemented his eloquent manor speech.

  “As novel as that would be,” Curtis said, still angry. “First of all, how many times have I been here?”

  Sonny looked puzzled, “Curtis you have been here every Sunday for over a month, so five or six times,”

  Curtis was stunned. He had no recollection of ever being at the brownstone other than that first visit and now this one. “What are you injecting yourself with?” Curtis asked.

  “It’s the same thing we’ve been giving you these past weeks, an immunization of sorts,” Sonny said.

  “You think it’s some sort of disease?” Curtis asked.

  “Not a disease as much as a virus or pathogen. Either way the formula offers some protection,” Sophie said.

  “Some?” Curtis asked.

  “Some,” Miguel said.

  “How is it you people knew these things were in the area?” Curtis asked.

  “We didn’t,” said Alpha Turner.

  “Then how…?” Curtis stopped. Any decent hunter knows to set many traps, Curtis thought. “How many properties like this do you people own?”

  “One, you really need to quit using the term ‘you people’ and two, our organization owns over one million homes between the U.S., UK, Italy, and South America,” said Sonny.

  “Just the six of you?” Curtis asked incredulously.

  “As I explained, Keeper had lots of children, and those children all had lots of children,” said Beta Turner.

  “You’ll forgive us if we are not willing to divulge our specific numbers and locations,” said Jahn.

  “No you smug bastard! I do not forgive you! YOU PEOPLE nearly got me killed! YOU PEOPLE may have already allowed an entire family to be slaughtered like cattle! I do not forgive any of you!” Curtis was breathing heavily.

  “Our issue isn’t that we don’t owe you our trust, our issue is that you may not be yourself,” said Sonny.

  “You will have to explain that,” said Curtis as he calmed himself.

  “The antioxidant/antitoxin got rid of the creature but you have been under their influence for some time, weeks possibly. As far as any of us know from the very beginning. What you have been eating combined with the pheromones means you may fall back under his ‘influence’ – to a limited degree – if you were to come in contact with them again,” explained Jahn.

  “You have been giving me that stuff for a month,” Curtis stated more than asked. “He knows you’re coming,” Curtis said. Not really to anyone in particular. “I don’t know what I may have told him,”

  “It doesn’t matter, you can identify it, that means we can kill it,” Jahn said.

  “Which unit is he in?!” asked Sonny.

  “That’s the thing. He’s not a tenant. He lives in that property right next to yours. He calls himself Tanner or Tanár” said Curtis.

  “Oh my god!” said Sophie.

  Everyone asked in unison “What?”

  “Tanár is professor in Hungarian,” Sophie said.

  “That’s impossible! How could he know…?” Sonny stopped.

  “He probably didn’t,” boomed a brusque voice from the couch. The couch was facing away from Curtis and most of the room. The speaker was obviously lying down thus invisible from where Curtis stood.

  Curtis could make out a pair of hiking boots hanging off of one end and the t
op of a man’s head at the other. That’s impossible, thought Curtis, the guy would have to be close to seven feet tall. The way his voice carried was more like a subdued growl or roar.

  “Who are you?” Curtis asked the couch. He was really just about done with surprises.

  The giant man stood up. He was wearing safari pants and a matching jacket. He had a whip curled on his hip Indiana Jones style and a bandolier across his chest loaded with small darts. He towered over even Jahn. His chest and shoulders looked five feet wide to Curtis. Even though his smile was friendly his eyes had the look of a predator, a hunter. Someone who had survived by assessing every person and situation he encountered. The man looked like a psychotic Theodore Roosevelt. Curtis took half a step backwards.

  The man locked eyes with Curtis, extended a massive paw-like hand and said, “I’m a Specialist,”

  “Curtis,” was all Curtis could come up with as his hand was engulfed.

  “Sorry to put you through so much my boy. Your recent troubles have been mostly the result of my meddling,” The Specialist continued.

  “Come again?” asked Curtis.

  “We…the Keepers, have had need in the past to work with…” Sonny struggled for phrasing.

  “For tonight’s activities, I’m your ally and stalwart companion,” boomed The Specialist.

  Curtis did not like the way this man smiled, or smelled for that matter. It was too close to an animal scent.

  “I would like you to elaborate on your theory that this thing knows were coming and possibly who they are,” instructed The Specialist.

  “He asked me about my little group of friends. He asked me if I called myself the Lord of Land.” Curtis fought through the fog of memory. Remembering a dream was difficult under the best of circumstances and these circumstances were not those.

  “Yes,” said The Specialist thoughtfully “He probably didn’t know. Well, it appears that you Reapers have underestimated our quarry.”

  “Could someone fill me in?” Curtis asked.