Mother Read online

  Praise for MOTHER

  “Philip Fracassi’s Mother manages to pay homage to classic turn of the 20th Century horror stories while simultaneously fitting right in with the modern weird/occult tale. A promising debut!” – Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts

  “Mother occupies a modern Gothic niche, yet unfolds in a disorienting and timeless fashion. A touch of giallo and a whole dose of nastiness.” – Laird Barron, author of X’s for Eyes and The Croning

  “If Mr. Fracassi writes another nine of these, I’m in the queue for his first collection!” – Adam Nevill, author of The Ritual and Lost Girl

  “Mother is a story of domestic collapse at the fringe of the known world that recalls the thematic brutality of Nathan Ballingrud and Karl Edward Wagner. This one will sneak up on you.” – T.E. Grau, author of The Nameless Dark

  “Philip has created characters we want to succeed and makes us feel their pain. Loaded with dark possibilities, I think you’ll be surprised at the outcome.” – Horror Novel Reviews

  “A great read. Recommended.” – Christopher Slatsky – author of Alectryomancer

  “A Favorite Read of 2015” – Ian Rogers – author of Every House is Haunted

  “…a terrifying climax, one worthy of Lovecraft himsellf” – Muzzleland Press

  “…along the same lines as Rosemary’s Baby…I definitely recommend this to anyone wanting to get a good horror fix.” – Bookworm on the Block

  “I really enjoyed Mother – beautifully constructed, it’s a perfect combination of literary writing and full-on horror.” – Dark Musings UK

  “A disorienting, metaphoric fugue which, on one level, gives new meaning to the projected terrors of parenthood. Fracassi’s novelette begins on familiar ground but quickly dissolves into something far more sinister, plummeting the reader into strange and darkly beautiful depths. By tale’s end, we cannot help but feel enshrouded by its wicked web, paralyzed by its piercing denouement. Highly recommended.” – C.M. Muller, editor of Nightscript

  “…the conclusion of Mother scared the hell out of me, and disturbed me for days after.” – The Conqueror Weird

  “…this short read is full of palpable dread. The emotions rendered here are realistic and very human. There’s hopelessness and guilt, blame and regret all twisted in fibrous webbing to catch us up when we want to sprint quickly ahead of the story. The ending is a slap across the face.” – Ginger Nuts of Horror

  MOTHER

  Philip Fracassi

  DUNHAMS MANOR PRESS

  Dunwich — East Brunswick — Fisherville

  © 2015 Philip Fracassi

  Cover design by Jordan Krall

  Published by Dunhams Manor Press

  An imprint of Dynatox Ministries

  Printed in the USA.

  Dunhams Manor Press

  East Brunswick, New Jersey

  USA

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  SECOND EDITION

  Ted, for your support.

  Paul and Adam, for your generosity.

  Jordan, for your hard work.

  Laird, for your wisdom.

  Stephanie, for everything.

  I know Julie loved me once. I know it as fact, like the warmth of sunshine on my skin.

  We met at our university’s freshman mixer, and afterward became lovers. I’ll never forget the first time I saw her. Such an innocent, pale face. Her dress, simple and used, was patterned with brown leaves that matched her wide hazel eyes, so large and hopeful you wondered how something so fragile had survived so much of life, traveled this far without being scarred by one of the hard stories the fates wrote so carelessly. In time we discovered each other’s hidden scars, old wounds buried beneath the skin, embedded near the heart.

  Julie’s parents were tragically killed when she was a baby. It was her grandmother—an herbalist of some kind—who raised her.

  My father left when I was a teenager. I became reckless and bitter during those formative years. The only piece of him I kept was a watch he gave me on my tenth birthday. It had a scratched glass face and a worn leather strap that left a two-inch gap of air around my thin wrist, even when tightened to the last bolt hole. I wore it every day until the day he left.

  My mother raised me strict, home-schooling me during my elementary years, using antiquarian tomes as textbooks. When I turned fourteen, she reluctantly sent me to the public high school. Left too long without peers, I struggled in the school system, a misfit. Meanwhile my body sang the deep, hitching song of puberty, an anti-cancer changing me from the inside out. I hated her for making me different, and as my cells rearranged that hatred became a deep part of me, growing along with my bones, and just as permanent.

  Mother wasn’t a doting person. Her favorite recitation was along the lines of how I was “just like my father.” She had different versions of the same phrase, some loud and brash, some whispered and private, but always meant as an insult, and always taken as such. When I finally left home, I was sure to throw the line back at her before she could open her twitching lips. I gave her the watch with the worn leather strap as a token of my thanks.

  Yet somehow Julie and I persevered through our difficult childhoods, making it to that moment, that night, huddled in the corner of the university cafeteria, perched on the edges of two plastic folding chairs like chittering parakeets, talking for hours while staring into each other’s eyes, as if the secrets of the universe lay within.

  Three years later I proposed, planning it around an annual carnival that came into town at the end of each school term. Julie loved carnivals, loved the escape into daring and magic they offered. Her favorite ride was the Merry-Go-Round, twirling in soft, lazy circles with a concordance of decorative beasts, their hollow bodies rammed through by twisting unicorn shafts into the dimpled steel floors, the baroque mirrored ceilings. We sat in a carriage, staring at the plastic ass of a particularly bright blue steed while sitting on the coarse wool of a Navajo blanket her granny had knitted. When I showed her the ring, she laughed and cried, and we said all the usual things. I was happy, and still remember the blur of the carnival surrounding us, the hovering black sky dotted with silent stars creating a perfect backdrop to the swirling colors and sounds.

  When the ride stopped, she ran to tell the first person she saw: the Merry-Go-Round operator. He was a frail old carnie in a frayed ball cap, his long gray hair resting in a twice-bound loose pony-tail forgotten down the middle of his back. He smiled and hugged her. Frankly, it was unsettling for me, standing there watching the hysterics. It was the first time doubt crept into my mind about the decision. But Julie didn’t notice my trepidation, and when the old man invited her for a spin on the make-shift dance floor the carnival had laid-out, complete with bordering haystacks and a four-piece hick band playing forgotten cowboy songs, she barely spared me a glance before agreeing.

  So she danced with the old man, a surrogate father perhaps, while I watched. That gold-toothed old-timer even smiled and winked at me once, and I hated her for it. Standing there like an idiot, I gave the occasional wave and smile. After a few moments, however, I became far more interested in the stars. I was wondering if it would burn your fingers to touch the
m.

  And so I stood on aching feet and stared into the infinite, holding the home-spun blanket and an empty ring box while smiling Julie danced in circles with the damnable Merry-Go-Round man.

  We married the day after graduation, exchanging vows in the campus church and holding the reception in the shadowy back room of a local pitcher-and-pizza place called The Piper, the offered buffet being the house special stacked in warm boxes atop a tattered pool table. All of our friends attended. It is a day I will never forget, because it was the happiest we ever were. The happiest we would ever be.

  After the wedding we moved to my hometown in West Virginia, a small city near Charleston. In hindsight, this was a mistake. I knew she missed her grandmother, and moving to the South with me was a sacrifice. But the reality was I had a job waiting—a teaching position at a community college—and, being newlyweds, a job meant security. It would cover the costs of a small apartment while Julie finalized her own career path, already an uphill climb. Julie had received her degree in history, but it was the art world that held her captive and would not let go, oblivious to the pain it would eventually cause.

  Believing herself a painter, but also relatively pragmatic, Julie hoped to find work at a gallery, possibly as a curator, where she could learn the business aspects of the trade while still furthering her own talents. Her skills were imperfect, but it was an idea she treasured, a world she believed in, and she hoped to improve with time and study. To be truthful, I never fully understood her desire. It seemed naïve. Whimsical. Daydreams are nice when you are a bored child, but for a married adult it is an impractical pursuit.

  Our happiness wilted as those first years of marriage years fell away like petals off a dying rose. Much of our conjugal tension had to do with my upward career trajectory, compared (as it inevitably had to be) to Julie’s own stagnant professional life. Cocktail parties became sour affairs, reunions where everyone compared the thickness of their wallets and readied profiles of their success. Ours was slim on both counts, filled solely with my own contributions. Julie had yet to find her niche, or even a temporary job to fill the time. When there were no galleries left to leave resumes with, she looked for work as a teacher, then as a volunteer. Anything to keep her in the field of arts she adored. As time passed, however, even she realized those wishes were conceived in the bright dreams of daytime after all. Those dreams became bitter pills she swallowed more and more of every day, poisoning her while steadily increasing the rancor between us.

  One evening I remember vividly. I had come home late from a long day of conferences and wanted nothing but a hot meal and a warm brandy. I entered our apartment and was surprised at the silence. The silence and the dark. I called out for Julie, thinking she must have gone out (with whom I have no idea). Her thin voice came from so nearby that I jumped. Following her voice, I found her murky outline lying prone and silent on our stiff rattan couch, sunken in the shadows like a thing in wait for prey.

  “What are you doing?” I said, flipping on the light. Her eyes squinted momentarily, her pupils adjusting, stung by the stark contrast. Despite the light, she remained as motionless as a corpse.

  “I’m lying down, Howard,” she muttered. “Why?”

  “Because it’s a bit odd,” I said, adding a hint of anger to hide a cold thread of discomfort. “How long have you been lying there? You frightened me.”

  She looked at me. A subtle tilting of her oval head, so round and frail beneath her brown hair. I shuddered at that empty glance. It was a dead thing.

  I turned my back to her and closed the door, chiding myself for creating tension. I took a breath, tried on a docile smile, and went to her. I kneeled down, put my hands on her head, kissed her dry, still lips.

  “What is it, Jules?” I said, using my most affectionate tone. “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s nothing,” she said, looking past me to the ceiling. Then her eyes slid to mine, dilated, as if just now aware of my presence. She sat up quickly, waking from the trance, ran a hand through her hair, sticking the end of one strand into her mouth, something she used to do when studying. A tick I used to love. “I was just realizing I’ve made some poor decisions, and now I’m afraid it’s too late. Too late to repair the damage.”

  I was stunned. Stunned—and to be frank—annoyed as hell. A buzzing filled my head. I drew away from her.

  “What decisions are those, Jules?” I asked, reddening. “To move here? To marry me?”

  “Please Howard, you’re overreacting,” she said dismissively. “I was just reflecting.”

  “Well that’s fine,” I kept up, still tacky with venom, “and while you’ve been reflecting I’ve been working. Working to keep this apartment, working to put food on the table—or in this case, the freezer, as I doubt you’ve thought to prepare a thing for my dinner.”

  And then (and this detail I’ll never forget, even in these last moments of my life) she smiled at me. It was an ugly thing, filled with mockery and scorn, something she dragged from a dark closet of her mind I had never seen opened before. Had never known existed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, still wearing that dreadful look. Then she stood and went to the kitchen. I went to the bathroom and when I returned she handed me a brandy, her horrible mask now put away, returned to the web-strewn cellar of her mind she had released it from.

  I began spending longer hours at the college, going to events and intellectual gatherings with students and peers. I had little interest in spending time at home with Julie, who was becoming more reclusive and sluggishly despondent.

  Truth be told she was a bore. It was one thing to try and fail, but to just give up, to allow her lost dreams to devour her insides, leaving only the reflection of hollow lethargy in her once-sparkling hazel eyes, was more than I could bear. It was depressing for both of us, and I began to avoid her. Sad—maybe cruel—but the truth.

  And yet I still held hope for our institution. I made every effort to hold up my end of the bargain as it pertained to our vows, unrelenting in my desire to mend what had torn between us. We needed a change.

  When my career made the funds viable, I purchased a proper home—a place nestled deep in the country. It was nothing fancy, a two-story colonial with faded yellow siding and peeling bone-white trim. The house was pressed up against a dense patch of yellow poplars that chased an army of long grey-barked oaks up a rising hill, their acorn droppings littering a worn wooden deck that spawned off the French doors of the upstairs master bedroom. In the mornings I would stand at the moist, pockmarked railing and look out upon the acres of thick, tangled growth, land we owned but would never use. There was a spindly blue creek that trickled deep within the throat of the forest, an afterthought to the wild swath of vegetation, a varicose vein in Mother Nature’s swollen green thigh, creeping its way beneath the coarse hairy thatch of leafy trees. But the air itself was fresh and cool, and overall the surroundings were peaceful. I prayed the serenity would lift Julie’s spirits.

  I went so far as to donate one of the rooms to be utilized as a painting studio. It was the attic, true, but it had been remodeled. The exposed beams now covered in birch sheeting, the porous wooden floors sanded down and glazed smooth. There was a small window for light and an inspiring forest view. It had all the privacy a young artist could hope for while developing their ideas of fancy.

  When she returned from a short trip to visit her grandmother, I surprised her with the remodel. “Oh, Howard!” she exclaimed. “It’s lovely, it really is.”

  She looked at me like the Julie of old, with love and a sparkle of affection in her eyes. I was proud to have pleased her, and a gush of satisfaction released inside me, punching through a wall that had been dammed for many years. She kissed me on the cheek and asked if she could drive to town and buy new supplies. I withdrew my billfold and happily gave her what she needed.

  For many nights thereafter I’d come home and hear Julie up in the studio, scurrying around like a beastly-sized rodent. I was so please
d I didn’t even bother her to make my dinner.

  There were other nights, however, when I’d come home and Julie would be sitting in the dark at the kitchen table, the room glowing numbly with the pale, fading sunlight stealing in through the curtained windows.

  She would be waiting for me. Sitting there like a scolded child, pots unused on the stove behind her, the house untidy. I’d try to talk to her. To reason with her. She would just cry, spewing nonsense about wanting a job, that she needed to work outside the house, that it was stifling her, as if I were a jailer arriving with the key to a damp prison cell.

  “Julie,” I said once, getting words in between her sobs and tears, “it’s what you wanted. Freedom to follow your dream.”

  “But Howard...”

  “No.” I cut her off, firmly. “This is what you wanted. I’ve given it to you. The studio, the supplies, the time to create. You must assert yourself, Jules. You must always be conscious of finishing what you start.”

  I stepped toward her, put my hand on her chin, raising her face to see me. Holding it there.

  “Do you agree? Or not.”

  “Yes,” she said, looking down, away from my judging eyes, not daring to pull her head from my patient hand.

  “So there it is,” I said, leaving to make myself a drink. With my bourbon poured I sat at the table, watched her over my glass. I felt small writhing worms of disgust in my belly as she stood in a pouting stance and, some time later, flat-footedly brought out plates of food, served stiffly like a sacrifice. I let it go for the sake of peace and took another drink, not even seeing what she had prepared. Most likely a pasta.