Red - Jack Ketchum [31]
“And close the door behind you.“
Cleek turns on the overhead light and snaps on a pair of rubber work gloves. The cellar door slams shut.
Belle’s standing behind him, twisting nervously at her wedding ring.
“You might want to take that off,” he says. “And put on a pair of these. This is going to be messy.”
He watches her work the ring off her finger and shove it in the pocket of her Bermudas. It occurs to him that all this time down here Belle hasn’t yet said a word. He’s guessing she’s not too sanguine about all this. He wishes she were but he knows his wife. She’s always been a timid thing. When they met as kids that was attractive to him. It’s not anymore.
She puts on the rubber gloves.
“Grab a bucket.”
They move to within about three feet of the woman and set down the buckets. He dips the soapy dish rag into the steaming water, lathers it up more and presses it to the woman’s forehead and
~ * ~
she smells it long before it touches her, a disgusting mix of fats and other scents not of her world and when it touches her she can feel her skin crawl beneath the hot cloth and bastard! son of a whore! she screams and tears at the shackles holding her, every muscle in her body working to get to him and tear at him screaming all the while as he stumbles back and
~ * ~
kicks the pail at Belle’s feet, which nearly overturns, sloshes steaming water all over his wife’s bare legs so that she screams and the woman is screaming at him too “Bastart! Mac dar striapach!” over and over, thrashing side to side and forward and back — he can hear her spine banging against the shelf behind her and the rage comes riding through him like a runaway train.
“That’s how you want to play? Fine!”
He bends down and picks up the bucket at Belle’s feet and flings its contents. The water that has scalded his poor wife’s legs now leaps out of the bucket all over the woman’s shoulder, her neck, her cheek, her belly. Her scream goes hoarse and guttural.
And abruptly, stops.
~ * ~
It burns! Hot enough to take her breath away.
The man picks up the second bucket. And she is immediately aware of two things simultaneously. The first gives her hope. The bolt to her right has loosened considerably. The second gives her shame. Because she knows that the look in her eyes has changed.
From a look of defiance to one of fear. Fear of that second bucket.
And knows he sees this too.
~ * ~
Brian sits at the screened window staring out toward the cellar. It isn’t fair, he thinks. But then, when were adults ever fair? He jumps up at the sudden screaming outside coming from the cellar and heads for the door. No way he’s missing this. Fuck it. Peg passes him in the hall. She’s chomping on an apple.
“Hey! You’re gonna catch hell if you go back down there, Bri,” she says.
“Suck my dick, sis,” he says.
He races outside.
~ * ~
“This what you want? You want more?”
And she gets his drift. He can tell she gets it. There’s something in her eyes that’s almost humble — almost pleading with him. He likes that. Likes it a lot. He wonders if she’s ever looked at anybody that way before exactly and he likes that thought even better. That he should be the first.
He sets the bucket down.
He looks to his wife.
“You okay, honey?
Her legs are splotched beet red. She hisses in a breath, speaks through gritted teeth.
“Yes.”
“Good. Let’s try this again.”
She shakes her head like this is crazy which he doesn’t much care for but unwraps her own bar of soap and folds it into a dish rag which he likes.
~ * ~
His mom and dad are standing in front of the woman with dish rags in their hands and he doesn’t see what all the commotion was about. The woman seems calm enough. His view through the peephole is perfect but he can barely hear them through the door. He listens carefully. He doesn’t want to miss a thing.
“Maybe we should let this cool down a bit before…” his mom says.
His father interrupts her. “Now hon,” he says, “you know as well as I do that the best way to get something clean is with good hot water. Might as well be shuffling germs around if we go cold or