How About A Halloween Treat? My Short Story, "Rotten Apples."

 You'll dig this one. Really, you will. 

It was published in The Beauty of Death from 2016, I believe. 

"Rotten Apples" was written in a white-hot flash in October of 2014, a couple weeks after my father passed away. I was in Italy when I received the news. I was headed back in less than two weeks, but then my mother had a fall and...things went a bit sideways. I remember thinking of it as a way to hold on to some memories of things he'd said to me over the last few years, mostly job stuff; interesting and sometimes quite curious job stuff; that and some character traits. Some of (a lot of) the history of the father in the tale is drawn from real life. Enough to make me smile whenever I think of the story or reread some or all of it.  

I can see where I'd edit this or that (and did a few minor ones), but for right now, this is good to go. 

Enjoy!

*** 

Rotten Apples

By John Claude Smith

 

     Halloween loomed and the apple tree out back was bursting with a plethora of plump, blood-red apples amid a cloak of leaves the color of rust and old skin. Leaves that carpeted the dirt floor of the backyard as they always had at this time of year, as well as half the roof of the house. The sickly-sweet smell made my nostril hairs twitch and my head throb. Apples were everywhere, collecting as a silent congregation, watching over the proceedings.

I did not think much of it, but my only sister, Sara, blamed the late season surplus on Father, whom we buried beneath the tree last year. Her father, not mine, the secrets a family keeps often narrowed down to participants and not even siblings who would not know otherwise. My cousin Candi had decided to spill the beans to me ten years ago on a visit, over lunch. A lunch I never finished, what with the shocking news and her crooked smile of satisfaction at being the one to break this secret to me.

“You should taste the apples. They look fine, look red delicious,” she smirked, “but they don’t even taste like anything apple-like.”

I curled my brow, almost laughed, but changed my expression when biting down on the strange fruit. There was no crunch as my teeth sank into the rich, red skin with ease. I winced and immediately spat out the vile, mushy innards. Glancing inside, the color was an unhealthy bruise blue. I pulled the apple apart with my fingers. The seeds were paltry and few.

“Are they all like this?”

Sara nodded, her nose crinkling, an empathic response to my having tasted what she’d known for a while, or possibly the overwhelming smell, which felt like it was seeping into my pores.

“I tell ya, just like in life, Daddy infected the tree.”

I was never close to my father, though had grown closer over the last few years as he dealt with a variety of illnesses that left the doctors baffled. He finally succumbed to what they deemed was cancer that had spread throughout his body, even though the indicators of his downfall did not relate to what Sara and I had read about cancer. The natural path of attrition, losing weight and more, didn’t happen here. He seemed almost perfectly fine, except for the smudged slate of his brain. A blackboard littered with nonsensical scribbles, even though he could still hold a conversation. A curious frittering away…

Though his mind had always been, in a way, broken.

When we were kids, his paranoia was something to behold. His work in the national security field for the government lent his paranoia weight. Knowledge bred suspicion. Co-workers he once called friends became suspects conspiring to invade our privacy. Phone taps and regular sweeps of the house, looking for electronic bugs of any sort, for signs somebody was listening in on our average life, became the norm.

By the time he was let go from his job fourteen years ago, in his early sixties, it was as much about his erratic work habits as it was about his escalating mental delusions.

After six months of anger, he calmed down and adjusted to life away from the watchful eye of Big Brother. The adjustment brought calmness to holidays and any visits beyond that. But this did not last long. About eight years ago, once the inconclusively defined illnesses became prevalent, his fractured mental faculties kicked into high gear, the once prominent paranoia magnified to preposterous levels.

Worse yet was the onset of gibberish spat out in a different language, one neither Sara nor I could decipher.

Mom understood it, though. Or she claimed to, which may seem a curious statement, even as her translations always came off as quirky in a way that made sense in the context of how Father thought and would express himself. “It’s as if she’s jacked into his mind, been corroded by him,” Sara had said back then. Despite her perception, I didn’t see it that way. They were good people, though of course all families cater to the whim of private madness that defines the shape of personalities, conflicts, love.

You see, Father was a borderline genius, perhaps well beyond borderline. He claimed he quit Stanford after three months because he was smarter than the professors.

This did not hinder his quest for work in the electronics field as he was hired by Motorola soon thereafter, before quitting in the late 1960s to work for a private government organization in the capacity of national security.

Part of his conversations over the last couple years dealt with his travels in the field, working on Nixon’s plane in the 1970s, in obscure capacities with the satellite dishes up in Northern California, and even more complex narratives about security measures, means of observation and attainment of personal information stemming from covert surveillance devices within the architecture of buildings, bridges, traffic lights, ATM machines—everywhere. All kinds of James Bond spy stuff, without the smug smile, a wink, and a kiss. His knowledge was paramount and of a level most science fiction writers would have enjoyed channeling. I remember watching the Will Smith movie Enemy of the State and thinking Gene Hackman’s ultra-paranoid character had Father written all over him. What that character knew was the tip of what Father rambled on about.

Mom, on the other hand, was street savvy. Her intellect was ground floor, not lesser so much as of a different focus. She’d been raised in Brooklyn, learned to live by any means possible. She didn’t even graduate from high school, her tooth-and-nail upbringing constructed around necessity in the now and not forward looking in any way. I could not understand at what point she would have learned the unusual language, words often sounding as if the product of an accidental marriage of incompatible letters, especially since it had not arisen until the last two years or so. Wouldn’t there have been signs before now?

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Mom stepped off the porch and onto the hard dirt riddled with weeds. She waved her hand at the tree. “Daddy blesses us still.”

“You tasted these?” I asked, canting my head toward the fallen apples, still wiping the sticky juice from my fingers onto my black jeans.

“Just takes some adjustment to what he’s imbued in the fruit,” she said. Imbued. One of Father’s words. Perhaps he’d imbued her intelligence with a broader vocabulary by osmosis.

“Mom, it would take more than that. Why do you lie to yourself they’re any good?” Sara said, lacking tact in the face of honesty. Rather blunt, as usual.

Mom glared at her. Sara glared back. I stared at both of them. Another Mexican standoff. They were of the same fabric, no matter how much Sara would deny it if asked point blank. Like Mom, she was stubborn, too; with force.

We stepped onto the porch and past the sliding glass door.

The house was modest, broken in by the years and, yes, imbued with the personality of our family. The neighborhood had changed all around it, but the house looked pretty much as it did over thirty years ago when my parents settled us here. A paint job a couple years ago really emphasized this, an odd effect, as if we’d stepped back in time.

Sara and I had gone off to live our lives. Or at least fake it. I had a marriage that failed on every level and a couple of long relationships that petered out as if the natural course of my time with anybody was about six years. The last one ended almost two years ago, and I’ve been unhappily single ever since. Sara had also fumbled through her own relationships and was single as well. At this point I’d lost any maternal desire to have children, even as my parents had always wanted grandchildren. With Sara also being in her early forties, I didn’t foresee heirs to the throne of our misery, probably a good thing. We’d met minimal success in our fields of interest. We’d learned how to get by on less, because more was never a result of our endeavors. Life was a slog, with happiness always ducking around a corner.

After her latest job debacle, Sara was even living at the house, which might explain her harsher tone toward Mom. She had a way with pushing each of our buttons, inspiring frustration if not outright anger.

Even though I lived in the town next door, I hadn’t been to the house since Father’s memorial, a private, family function. It was a clunky affair that left a bad impression. I skipped on Thanksgiving and Christmas, feigning an overload of work. I was sad, but personalities clashed about the tiniest things, leaving me worn out by family affairs.

I had needed the break, but enough time had passed at this point. With Mom’s demand we got together for a real celebration of our father a year after his passing, I felt I would give it a shot, knowing full well it would probably end up a mess. Though Mom wanted a celebration, there’d been no specs, no plans. Nothing like, say, having a dinner out in his memory, or maybe an evening spent watching his favorite movies. This was our way, to meander without a set destination.

“Can we get some heat in here?” I asked, to no one as I strolled to the hallway, and the heater. Before I flipped open the plastic door to press buttons and break the chill, Mom rushed by and grabbed my hand.

“No. Your father needs it like this. He…enjoys this time of year.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Nonetheless, I pulled my hand from hers and looked toward my sister, my “what the hell?” expression quite evident.

“You think that’s weird, you should see the master bedroom,” Sara said, scooting past Mom, who had retreated into herself, though with Sara’s giddy statement, she snapped, “Not now.”

“Oh, yes. Now,” Sara said, hand to the knob as I followed her down the hallway. She pushed the door open with a flourish. “Ta-da!”

The room was empty, except for a blanket and a pillow stuffed into a corner close to the bathroom door. Worse yet, the ceiling, for the length of the far side of the room above the window sagged obscenely, gray and discolored. It looked pregnant with disease or at least with something wrong.

I turned to Mom as she rapidly approached. “What is going on here? Where are the beds? What’s…that?” I said, pointing to the bloated ceiling.

“I don’t mind sleeping on the floor,” Mom said, shrugging her shoulders.

“Mom is off the deep end with dear old Dad, I would reckon,” Sara said, thumbs in the loops of her faded blue jeans, rocking back and forth on the heels of her yellow and black tiger-striped sneakers.

“Mom, this…this is not good. You can’t sleep on the floor. What of your back? You’ve had back issues for years. I’m sure this doesn’t help. And…the ceiling, for fuck’s sake.”

Sara laughed and I could not help laughing myself, though I am sure we were both laughing for different reasons.

Mom shuffled past me and barked, “Move,” as she shut the door. I was miffed to the nth. Sara walked off, posture tall, as if her hell was now our hell.

I followed her as she headed for the garage, though heard mumbling from the master bedroom that perked up my ears with cat-like concentration. It sounded like that weird language Father had spoken toward the end of his life.

I had a flashback memory from a couple months before he passed, a conversation of sorts, before leaving after a visit. Something forgotten, yet now…

“The English language, all languages, the languages of humans,” he paused, eyes skittish, head tilted back, “it’s like I feel I need to pluck the words out of thin air before using them anymore. As if that’s the only way at this stage I can even speak to you, Natalie.” He smiled, eyes bright, an inner joy leaking out. I remember thinking it made no sense, whatever he was trying to say. Then he spoke a sentence in that other language, the words abrasive on my eardrums, rubbing them wrong, and my body responding as if an eel rippled through me. He smiled wider and said, “You’ll understand soon enough.” But he was gone before understanding was attained.

Mom’s words, like Father’s, yet I felt I could understand them now, if I heard them more clearly or—

It all made no sense. I shook my head and stepped into the garage, where Sara was swigging from a bottle of white wine.

“Why didn’t you tell me about all this before I got here?”

“You had to finally get your ass here to really understand, that’s why. You think I like how this is playing out? What if their insanity is going to be ours?”

I hadn’t even thought about the possibility. That wasn’t the issue right now. The issue was what to do for Mom to help her. I grabbed the bottle of wine from Sara’s hand, took a swig.

“We need to do something, Sara. Help her.”

“Ha! You know how she can be. She accepts help begrudgingly. And she doesn’t see what she’s doing as anything wrong. She talks about Dad as if he’s relaying messages to her or some such shit.” She started to cry. I set the bottle on the clothes dryer.

“Hey, hey, sis,” I said, hand to her arm. “We’ll figure this out. We’ll figure out what to do.”

“No, no we won’t. You don’t get it. She’s been talking about this celebration as if it’s a homecoming for weeks. Tomorrow, All Souls Day, she acts like Daddy’s going to drop in for a visit. Take a break from his afterlife shenanigans and grace us with his rotting presence.”

“She’s always been a bit loopy. Don’t let her sink her talons in. We’ll figure it all out and make things right.”

Sara wiped her eyes and brittle blond strands of hair from her face. I hadn’t realized how drained she looked, the lines defined by more than the years. At our age, the onslaught of time is defined by wrinkles and sagging breasts and buttocks, but this was different.

She stared at me, her hard edge back.

“There’s no ‘right’ to be made here,” she said, downing four, five big gulps. “I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I know there’s nothing ‘right’ to fucking be had here.”

The doorbell rang.

“Let’s deal with trick or treat and today and Father’s celebration tomorrow,” I said. She set the bottle back on the clothes dryer and stomped past me. I stood there, utterly perplexed. Taking another mouthful of wine, I swished it around, coating my tongue, my teeth, and heard a child’s voice from outside say, “Trick or treat?”

Trick or treat, indeed.

I dreamt I was an insect wrapped in a polished black carapace, suffocating as it covered my body and spread to my face. My antennae twitched, the sensation felt in my belly. I comprehended something the dream did not reveal, but it remained vague, a shadow in the background. I woke up wondering if Gregor Samsa was my soul mate. I cursed Kafka, Mom, this house, the damned apple tree, and Father’s absence.

I heard voices through the vents. Listening intently, I could tell it was Mom and…somebody else. A voice with a masculine foundation. Obviously not Sara.

I shoved the sheets aside and set my bare feet on the carpet. The shag was cold as I stood and clicked on the lamp. The kitty with the rolling eyes wall clock stared back at me. 2:49 a.m. Hell. I listened to the light hum of the mechanism of the clock as I pulled on my deep blue flannel robe. Listened to it slow down and fall silent.

I glanced back up at the kitty clock. The always rolling eyes were frozen as it stared at me.

What the hell was going on?

The house was dark, though a hint of light played out from beneath the door to the master bedroom. The door to Sara’s room adjacent to the master bedroom was open. It was never open at night when we were younger. I slowly made way down the hall, pulling the robe tighter around me, the autumn chill coiled as a snake around my bones.

As I peered into Sara’s dark room, there was no sign of her.

I turned toward the master bedroom and lightly tapped my knuckles on the door. The whispering sounds of conversation fell silent.

I sniffed and covered my nose with my left hand. The funky fragrance from the rotten apples had seeped into the house.

I heard shuffling sounds, but no one opened the door.

“Hey,” I said. “Mom. Sara. Open the door.”

The door opened and Mom’s face filled the gap.

“It’s not quite time, honey.”

“Time for what?” I asked, hand to the door, pushing gently but firmly. Mom stood steady in response, unmoving.

She turned and croaked something in that language that only she and Father spoke. I hadn’t ever thought of it that way until now, perhaps her brusque intonation inspiring this observation, but those words, if they were words, seemed sculpted from the throat of a toad.

“What’s going on? Where’s Sara? Let me in.” I pushed harder, tired of games. Tired of it all.

Mom stumbled back but did not fall. The pungent odor caused me to gag. I felt woozy and almost lost my balance.

A bright, full moon caressed the branches of the apple tree, reflecting their windblown dance along the walls as it radiated deep into the corners of the room, adding mystery to the geometry. I swear the swollen ceiling vibrated.

Perhaps the heady aroma from the strange fruit was potent enough to alter the surroundings. I laughed at the absurdity yet knelt forward to vomit.

“There, there,” Mom said, stroking my hair. I pushed her hand away, wanting nothing to do with her or this place. No wonder I stayed away.

She said something entwined in that toad-croak of a language. A response emanated from above, deeper and muted. I angled my vision toward where it came from. The swollen ceiling. Mom enthusiastically clapped her hands together.

“Daddy says it’s okay, we can start now.”

A sound as of wood shifting, and the swollen ceiling quivered again.

Another vocalization, deep and droning, the cadence monotonous as it went on and on, from above.

“Daddy says since you are of his blood prior to transformation, you’re the only one able to carry on the family legacy. Says, Sara just didn’t have what it takes—”

“What are you talking about? Prior to his transformation—what? You make no sense. I know from Candi he’s not even my real father—”

Mom smiled, teeth glistening sharply. “That bitch doesn’t have a clue. As I just said, he is your father, it’s just the father you knew is not the father he was before his transformation.”

“You’re mad,” I said, not allowing her nonsense to infiltrate my brain. “Where’s…” But my question was derailed by what the moon’s candle-like flicker through the windblown branches revealed as I looked behind Mom and saw Sara on the floor, where the pillow and blanket were. Her unblinking eyes stared toward the window.

“Sara,” I said, knowing there would be no response.

I grabbed Mom and yelled, “What have you done, you crazy old bitch?”

She only smiled as my fingers dug into her arms. “She would have gotten in the way. We can’t have that, honey.”

I raised my hand to slap her. To strike her and run from this lunatic asylum and never look back.

There was a sound like something tearing, splinting…and the sagging ceiling erupted. The force caused both of us to crumble to the floor. I banged my head on the wall, a moment shrouded in a deeper darkness.

I shook my head to sweep away the intrusion of a transitory abyss that wanted to devour my consciousness and immediately raised my left hand to my nose, the sickly-sweet intrusion too much to bear. Apples were everywhere, piled high as the ceiling from which they’d been expelled. Some scattered as if running away, which sounded like a good plan to me. A couple bounded off my legs. I reflexively kicked them, not wanting to be stained by their touch.

The toad-croak of a language, loud and clear. From the pile. Loud and clear and I felt it twitch within my chest. Fluttering as the wings of a hummingbird.

“If you’d just gotten yourself pregnant, had a boy, Daddy could have imbued the boy with the knowledge of who he really was. Of what he was, such beauty.”

She was mad, or saner than I ever would be again. She spoke of impossible things as if they were happenstance. Yet happenstance played out before me.

I started coughing and the sound was rougher, deeper than the expected intonations.

From the pile of apples, the toad-croak of a voice again. Father.

I felt it within me, spreading from my chest to my fingers, the back of my brain, my knees, and my ankles—everywhere.

“Daddy needs an heir, and you’re no spring chicken, Natalie. He’s decided to…hurry things along.”

One coarse bleat from the mound, an exclamation point to Mom’s statement, and I was crawling faster toward the door. Getting away was all that mattered. I didn’t want to stick around and ask, so, how’s it going on the other side, Father?

Another bleat sliced through me, fluttering with intensity deep inside me. The wings of many hummingbirds in battle. I gasped, but even the gasp felt alien.

“Daddy says he’ll make things right.”

The mound of apples quivered, as the swollen ceiling had quivered, tumbling all about. As they tumbled, a dark figure was revealed. A dark shape. The moonlight haloed the silhouette. Indistinct movement was highlighted, but no arms or legs or anything vaguely human could be garnered from what I witnessed. It was only amorphous, fluid…

I forced myself to look away, to reach up for the doorknob and get the hell out of this place. To no avail. Father’s next words, in that language, changed me. Sheared off a parchment layer of skin to divulge a truth only these bizarre circumstances could reveal.

When he spoke, I became the fluttering, my body hitching as I fell to my back.

I heard something beating on the wall to the left of the strange shape. Something to the right, as well. A different kind of fluttering, like tribal drums warding off the monster…or calling King Kong to the sacrifice. His silhouette swelled as the ceiling had swelled. The edges flattened, taking on the aspect of a cut diamond, yet unsettled.

“Just relax, honey.” It was a preposterous proposal. “Daddy needs your womb. You weren’t using it anyway.”

Then, Father spoke to me.

I felt my insides flutter outward in transition. That toad-croak of a language dissecting me, freeing me of my humanly conceits. Opening me to my true self.

“You were always your father’s daughter, Natalie. Always,” Mom said.

Compelled to scream, I opened my mouth wide, only to utter a toad-croak sound. The language of our race, Father’s and mine.

Apples rolled past me as he approached…

*** 

Yeah, I like that one a lot. Hope you enjoyed it, too.